


Parabellum

by magistralucis (Solitary_Shadow)



Series: The Consolations of Philosophy [10]
Category: Daft Punk
Genre: AU, Angst, Apocalypse, Depressing, Desertpunk, Dialogue Heavy, Electroma, Existentialism, Futuristic, Gallows Humor, Gen, Gender Neutral Pronouns (for Ch. 4), Human!Daft Punk, Humanism, Male Friendship, Platonic Relationship, Robot!Daft Punk, Sci-Fi, Slice of Life, Theology, Tragedy, philosophical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-28 23:37:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2751407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitary_Shadow/pseuds/magistralucis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Amidst a devastated world, two young soldiers pursue a renegade killer through the Mojave.<br/>[Guy-Manuel/Thomas friendship only, Thomas POV. Post-Electroma AU.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ἐλευθερία

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Disclaimer: I do not know any of the members of Daft Punk, this is strictly a work of fiction and I do not profit from nor claim to represent true aspects of their lives in this story.**
> 
> This derives heavily from the style of Cormac McCarthy.  
> Unfortunately for some, this means no quotation marks. I've tried my best to let it be comprehensible, but let me know if it is not.

**Parabellum (Part One) - ' _ἐλευθερία_** '

\----------------------------

You've got to do what you've got to do. I think that's the long and short of it.  
The wind is fierce and dry. In the red-slanted duststorm he stands in front of me, lowering his rifle, inhaling through his gas-mask in sharp relieved bursts. He waves me closer towards him, beckoning, though I can't fight my way through the dust just yet; I raise my hand to signal that I've seen him, and that I'll join him in a minute or two when the wind dies down.

Upon his shoulders rests the weight of the world. I can see it.

Not long afterwards the storm fades into a mere whisper, winding itself around our legs, kicking up small clouds as we move. The crumpled bodies - already somewhat buried in sand - still twitch weakly on the ground beneath our feet.  
Unto this earth they emerge with much difficulty; taking them out is just as hard. I almost miss the good old days when a single good shot was enough, our enemies then being ordinary human beings and all; this, despite never actually having experienced it. Neither of us really have.

Is that all of them, I call over to him, even as I know the answer. Scuff the dirt beneath my foot. Dying fingers, crackling with static, grasp faintly at my ankles as I walk past them and the shrapnel. A few steps ahead of me, Guy is peering into the distance with his hand shielding his eyes, feet planted firmly atop the matted grass. Do you see anything?  
_Non,_ he says, plain and simple. He drops his hand and glances at me, his deep-blues reflecting the fiery glow of the sun overhead. Just us. Just us and the bodies, now, for miles.  
Think he definitely went in this direction?  
He definitely went in _some_ direction. This direction is as good as any. It's just a waiting game.  
I nod. That's all the answer I need, and it's not really as if I could expect either of us to know more. All right, I say out loud, and look down at my suit and his. Charge?  
45%. Enough for us to reach the next base, twenty miles due south.  
About the same. We're heading there, I take it.  
Aye, he says. Exactly like that, in English. It only comes out in his moments of complete sincerity, and immediately I am reassured. I am in good hands. We should be there before sundown. Let's go.

There's nothing left to do here, in that case. I cover my mouth against the gritty, raw-edged wind as he pulls me onward and I feel safe as long as he's close by.

Right behind you, he pats my back, and falls a few steps behind to his original position. Right behind you, comrade.

\-----

There was once a machine war.

Once, I say, but it wasn't in reality too long ago. Maybe a decade, decade and half. I was alive before it began. For a time humans and machines lived amongst each other; for a time, we were the masters and they were the servants; for a time the two factions co-existed, most distinctions dissolved between them; for a time, it was good. But we in our irrational arrogance couldn't leave it at that, we'd been masters of this planet for far too long. Voices spoke up, and they said: now that humans had accepted machines, it wouldn't be long before the machines began to question this state of affairs, and not long still before they decided they weren't content with acceptance alone.

I can't say whether their voicing this possibility doomed it to fruition, or whether this would have happened regardless. I think I wouldn't have been part of the generation to be dealing with this issue, though, had everyone sided with harmony.  
Call me selfish if you will. I need to go on.

Robots began as the creation of human beings, we all know that. And by the time humans and robots were mingling together, robots had come a very long way from mere automata. Still, nervousness had made its home amongst the humans, and we began to call the robot population _the second originals_ , mixed epithet of admiration and distaste. At some point human involvement with upgrades and introducing new prototypes had ceased, so inasmuch as they were capable of self-improving and creating, they were fully original. But that word, _second_ , forever branding onto their identity the reminder that we had come _before_ them, that we were _better_ than them - that we were still the dominant party, all things considered - that word divided us again.

They ran on binary, we ran on binary opposition. There was an _us_ again, against _them_.  
We began regarding them as outsiders again, formidable, dangerous, an eventual direct threat to mankind.  
And this time, they were fully conscious of us, enough to militarize in their own way and get the first attack in.

Most robots we deal with now are not the _originals_. The ones we fight against are built specifically for combat, and unlike humans they're far less concerned with keeping an unchanging population alive to carry on after the majority are destroyed. They improve and evolve far faster than we can, for sure, though I believe we still outnumber them. I'm being brief about this because said machine war, while technically ongoing, is not actually why _we're_ out here. To us, it's no more than a necessary but distant awareness in the back of our minds; it means that should we come across the same machines, we will perceive them as the _enemy_ , and destroy them before moving on. The deeper ins and outs of it are not our concern. We're here, in the depths of the Mojave, to deal with _people_ exclusively.

Of course it wasn't always like that. The first year I was in the military, we weren't even in California save for the first couple of missions - Guy and I met in Wisconsin, or what was left of it - and it's only been recently we took on this particular mission. Before that we were fairly standard, going on patrol, entering combat whenever needed, translating documents, you name it, we've probably had to do it. The world population is down by over half. New bodies are always needed so that we can keep going.

How did that happen so fast?  
Let's just say that this was never _strictly_ a human versus machine conflict. Plenty of humans fucked it up for other humans, too.

But. Anyway. The beginnings of the machine war itself, when there were actual full-scale battles between armies of robots and humans - I don't know much about _that_ time, except for what Guy told me. And even then his accounts are second-hand too; there aren't many alive in the world who has been in battle from the very beginning of the war and survived until this point. The stories that Guy can tell have a lot more to do with the _human beings_ that he had to deal with, on the enemy side (plenty have defected there, entire governments have too) or ours, the period when he was a combat medic, and his own past before the war. And he's got a lot of stories, with me to tell them to. Hey, every good veteran needs an outlet, and _he's_ considered a hardened veteran by this point. Definitely.

He doesn't go on about them whenever, but rather had a period of time at the start when he told me brief tales about himself mingled in with a great deal of advice. Once the teaching part was over, I naturally became curious to hear more stories; I asked for them eventually, and he delivered. Still does, whenever I ask, regardless of the time. It isn't hard to get him going - I've suspected often that he never got to talk about those things very much, until I came along and began asking.

You remember the stories left over from last week?  
What, the ones I said I'd tell some other time?  
I nod in reply. It just dawned on me that we've got plenty of free time _now_. I'd like to hear one in the meanwhile. Like the fire in Wisconsin? The one I apparently missed by two weeks?  
Nah, he says. Nah. You don't want to know that one. I probably can't actually tell you the bulk of it because there's no way that I can translate the smell of smoke and burnt skin into words, and you weren't there, so I can't very well just leave it up to your imagination either. It wasn't like a gunpowder smell, or even what it smells like when gas ignites or when the robots burst into flames. More like - _people_. Masses of them. Being cooked inside and out. I don't think I'll ever smell anything like it again in my life, God, I hope not. But the other one, I can tell you that one maybe. About Paul.  
Paul?

What did I tell you. It's fairly easy to get him going.  
We sit down. He lights me a cigarette, and then lights one for himself, tasting the smoke with relish. Now Paul was a _real_ son of a bitch, he begins, gesturing with the cigarette. And worst of all, _most of that wasn't actually his fault._ I still don't know who to blame whenever I think of what happened to him. I knew Paul before, he went to high school with me in Paris, can you believe that? There was nothing extremely _mean_ about him, or anything, but you could tell from just talking to him for a few minutes that he was never cut out for the military. Not many people are, but _he_ especially wasn't. I have no idea how he got past the training. Even then the ugliness didn't rear its head until that particular moment, when nobody was expecting it.  
Was he drafted, I ask, because I was. I already feel some kind of connection between Paul and myself.  
Mm-hmm. Actually, that answers it perfectly. He was drafted and he really shouldn't have been. It must have been summertime, he continues on. That's the first thing I remember about it, the hot sun shining on tarmac. This was when we still had actual nation states with their own military forces instead of one massive allied army, I'm sure we were in Lille when this happened - so it was quite a long time ago.

Significant parts of the world are uninhabitable now. Half of Europe. Southern America. The Far East. Various islands.  
That was mostly _us_ fucking up, not the robots. In a decade or two, talk of separate nationalities will be meaningless.

I'd joined a new unit. Paul joined me five days in, and it took us a couple of days to recognize each other. Even then I don't think we were _that_ close, but in his point of view he was probably glad to have me around - someone familiar, you know, someone from the good old days to hold onto. In reality we never talked much in high school. Don't even think we were in the same class, but I'd had _some_ history with - well, I'll get to that later. I'm already going off topic.  
Aw, damn. You're no fun.  
Guy ignores this and crushes out the filter, throwing sand over it. Even before the shit hit the fan I thought something was a little _off_ about Paul, he carries on, frowning delicately into the horizon. And that was because his mind had been breaking long before he ever came to join us, you see. He was often sluggish, and when he wasn't he was over-rushing everything. Very quiet, too, with periods of being overly cheerful and periods when he didn't want anything to do with anybody. It wasn't because of something he _did_ in particular - like, he wasn't feeling guilt for somebody he'd killed, or anything. He was just overwhelmed - he hadn't rested, hadn't sought any help - and that morning, he flipped. He just flipped.  
How so?  
We found his bed empty around seven o'clock. His uniform was there but his rifle was missing. My first thought was that he'd completely snapped and gone on a rampage or something, and I wasn't too far off - no, he wasn't going around shooting civilians, but we found him just... _wandering_ down the road. Towards the city center, rifle in hand, pretty much dressed only in a T-shirt and boxers, his cute little arse shining in the sun. Fuck. Forget I said that. That's not an image either of us needed to have. He heard us coming too, he had excellent hearing. Off he went running, we followed - and then he sat himself down in some narrow doorway and held us at bay with his gun for, what, ten minutes? Paul had parked himself in front of a shop or something, you see, I remember the faces pressed to the window staring at us in fear. We literally didn't know _when_ he was going to start shooting, or if he was going to go inside and raise even _more_ hell. I was shouting all the while, I don't even remember what. Paul. Put that rifle down. Paul. Put. That. Rifle. Down. We're not going to hurt you. I swear to fucking fish Jesus. Something like that, over and over. Maybe I came across as the most in control out of everybody else, but really, I was scared shitless and the bastard knew it.  
Wait. What the fuck. _Fish_ Jesus?  
You never seen a Jesus fish?  
I shake my head. He shakes his in bemusement. God damn. _Iesous Christos, theou yios, soter._  
Eh?  
Fish.

He shakes his head again, frowning; this time it's directed towards himself. He probably thought that he was derailing too far, never mind that it's _m_ e who asked in the first place. But yeah, that's not the point. _Eventually_ Paul put the rifle down. Unfortunately, it wasn't because he had a thought left in his head to actually assess the kind of situation he was in. No, he put it down because he decided that it was best to start firing, and somewhere along the way - by that I mean past the very first, because the son of a bitch only had that one shot in him - he realized things weren't working the way he thought they would, and threw his fucking rifle at us. Just straight up hurled it like a javelin.  
Did he hit anybody. Rifles aren't javelins.  
You're damn fucking right rifles aren't javelins. It didn't hit anybody and the shot missed and yet the bastard still got himself a bodycount.  
No shit?  
No shit. It was an unfortunate accident. Emphasis on _unfortunate_. See, one of the other guys in the unit. He heard the shot and he heard it whistle just a foot or so past his head. Fucker buckled onto his knees and had a _heart attack_.

I inhale sharply through my teeth. There is nothing I can say that expresses the sheer absurdity of what occurred there.

You know how CPR is supposed to work, Thomas.  
Yes.  
How fresh is it in your mind?  
I think back to the last time I reviewed my technique. Very. Went over it last month.  
I need to get re-certified. I'm not on top with that anymore. Not as much. But by 'supposed' I meant more like the _common_ view of CPR, like you might have thought it was before you became a soldier.  
Oh, the version where you just bend down, give mouth to mouth, share a few breaths and maybe pound a few times onto the victim's chest and they sit up, cough, breathe and live again?  
Yes, that version.  
It's a filthy lie, though.  
It is, he says. The joking tone in his voice has vanished entirely and when I glance at him his eyes are glazed over from memory. The guy who had the heart attack, I didn't know him quite as well. His name's vague too, I remember he was German but - what was his surname? Konrad? I've honestly had to block out a lot of what happened. (Here he stops, and shakes his head, when I make as if to tell him that he doesn't need to dig the past back up again.) No, it's fine, I'd probably be better off for being able to tell somebody. I was the most experienced in medical care out of all the guys there, so I got to him first and looked it over while Paul was being restrained. All the while the alarm's going in my head that I don't know what the fuck is going on, but if I don't do something, this guy is going to die on me.

Somebody called the civilian ambulance. Someone else radioed for help. Meanwhile there's me, with no medical gear nearby, and I look down at him and he's fighting for breath. He's got an airway but I remember it sounded horrible, kind of - _crispy_ \- not a word you should ever hear in conjunction with the ability to breathe. There's no mercy in CPR, like they teach you - the patient is basically dead, you can't hurt them worse than they already are.  
I remember that part, I respond, not expecting him to acknowledge it. He's no longer telling me a story about the _past_ – his tone's changed, he's simply narrating out loud what's happening, exactly as he's watching it all over again in his head. I only hope that this isn't hurting him any worse.  
It's hard to react exactly according to that, though. I have a guy stretched out in front of me and beneath my hands I can hear his sternum popping as I compress his chest. No way that guy was getting up in a hurry even if he'd lived. And maybe there was something even worse going on there, though I never got to hear the details, because at this point I can see the bile leaking out of his mouth - it really is green, and slimy. _Hot._ I'll never forget the smell.  
Oh fuck. Oh, Jesus.  
I tell myself that I didn't know fully well what was wrong with him. If you're regurgitating bile there's probably quite a bit more wrong with you than simple cardiac arrest. And he'd _inhaled_ before I really could get my head together. That's all what I tell myself when I think about the fact that I didn't give him breaths when I was supposed to.

And there is even less I can say or do to that, except to look at him. Guy looks back, maybe expecting judgement from me.  
He smiles sadly and without relief, and that's when I know he didn't find it. He'd much rather have been told downright that he'd fucked up everything. By the time the ambulance came he was purple and incapable of even trying to breathe, he says. I knew he was probably lost, then.  
The ambulance?  
_Oui._ They took him just a couple of miles off. Turned out that there was a honest-to-god _actual_ hospital, literally a block or two down from where that happened, and it was still staffed and functioning. They took him there, right alongside Paul.  
Did you go with them? I ask.  
_Non._ Had quite enough of the two of them, to be frank. Went back to camp and fell asleep. Later I met somebody who gave me an update - the guy I gave CPR to? It was for nothing in the end. He was alive when they took him away, had a pulse and everything, but he was dead soon after that. They said I did my best. It happens, they said. Sure I tried my best, but was that enough, I keep on wondering, was that enough.

The look in Guy's eyes is far away again, not from sadness necessarily but of doubt. He opens his mouth as if to continue, then thinks better of it, pausing instead to light another cancer stick.

If only I started sooner. Ignored the bile. Gotten a breath in proper. What was a bit of squeamishness over _bile_ compared to seeing your comrade completely lose his shit, or having a man dying on you? Nothing. But I hesitated and I always feel as if that's on me, you know, Thomas? I can't forget that. Bile running down his cheek. Even the gravel beneath his head was spattered green. You see those boots?  
I see them, all right. Guy taps at the front of them, scored vividly with diagonal marks, almost too strongly to be from age.  
These were brand new at the time when that happened. When I knelt down to give CPR, right there on the asphalt. That's where the scratches come from. Every time I put those on I remember, and now whenever you look down at those, you will too.  
Wow. Holy shit. Fuck you, Guy-Man. What a bedtime story.  
He just laughs at me while I call him several more variations of what I just said, regarding his being a twisted little bastard. Hey, at least this story has somewhat of a happy ending, he says while putting a reassuring arm around my shoulder. Because Paul _lived_. I know, I know, after what I just told you, it might sound like it wasn't that good of an ending at all. But as I said, Paul was dragged into a situation that he couldn't manage, and a lot of this wasn't his fault. It could happen to _anybody_. He survived, got sent back to Paris, and the last I heard of him, he'd been recovering fairly well. His sister told me. I went out with her for a few months in high school, there's the history right there, the one I was talking about a while ago.  
_Oh my God_. I can't imagine the stories he must have told her when he got back.  
Tell me about it. He'd sure as hell recovered enough to complain about me. About two weeks after the incident I got a call from her; I picked up and she was saying, like, no greeting or anything, just straight into: _hey, Guy. You remember why I broke up with you?_ How do you even react to that? All I could say at the time was: _well, no, it's been a long time since middle school. Or high school, I forget._  
What'd she say?  
Guy chuckles, cigarette quirked at the side of his mouth. _Because you're an asshole_. Then she hung up on me.

That lightens the mood somewhat, and seeing Guy smiling - I mean genuinely - over any reason at all is comforting to me. Then we get up, slap each other's backs, pick up our rifles and move on.

\-----

Can you see the base ahead?  
I look. My eyesight's better than his. I see nothing, but my scanner picks up the desired location easily. No, but we're nearby. Look.  
He looks, and nods. _Merci._ All those years out in the field and I still get nervous if I can't see my destination when I ought to be able to.  
I'm fairly sure that's normal, isn't it? Even if it's not, well, don't worry. I got you.  
And I got you, he says, but have you gotten hold of _yourself?_

The first time he asked me that, two days into our acquaintance and during training - _that_ really sold me to his trustworthiness.  
Think about it. _I got you_ on its own, though a standard way to show concern for a comrade, isn't actually a consolation to anybody. You got a charred corpse on your wagon, you got him, all right. Doesn't mean a thing to you or the stiff, whoever the poor bastard is. But if you ask someone whether they're conscious of _themselves_ \- well -

(Yes, I do, Guy. Thanks to you, I say, before we hurry onwards.)

\- _that's_ a more useful indicator of how your partner really feels, you know?  
Especially seeing as the answer comes back as 'yes' less than half the time. We don't really know how we feel and what we're feeling a lot of the time, because other processes in our heads are blocking that bit of vital information, and there's only so much _another person_ can tell you about the subjective being that is you.

You need that introspection. You need that reminder to take care of yourself. Everyone does.

\-----

We reach the base, just short of an hour later.

We've been here before. I think the last time we visited this particular location was a year and a quarter ago, or something, but I don't recognize anybody. Military bases as they used to be known don't really exist any more - we're not talking huge fortifications, entire towns serving as a training center, or even a regularly-maintained armory. There are more bases than ever before, but they're tiny, and they're not meant to be lasting. Even people who stay to maintain those places are rotated out eventually.  
Judging by what we have here in the Mojave, they might as well just be like hotels. Report in, charge your armour if you need to, receive further directives if there are any, and move on the moment you are able; the base can't provide for you for days on end. Somewhere along your path there will be another place for you to rest. Best of luck to you.

Oh, yes. I didn't mention this before. We have powered armour.  
They're not as cool as you think. Sorry to disappoint. (I was told some time ago that they too are relics from earlier in the war.) They come in useful for some things - if we know we're going to come across danger at some point, it pays to have them, for one. And if for some reason you're doing a lot of heavy lifting, they're indispensable. If the terrain isn't too rough or too soft, and if we know that we'll be able to reach a base or charging station within the limited time we have, they're not _disadvantageous_ to wear. Otherwise, I can't say I have strong opinions about them. The standard uniform and rifle seem good enough to me. Anyway, the point is, we're out of them now. While we're waiting to be signed in, another soldier passes us by.

Hello, he says. You two just come in?  
Yes.  
Pedro, he says, tapping his name badge at the same time. Then he extends his hand. Nice to meet you.  
I'm Guillaume, Guy shakes his hand once, firmly and briefly. Nice to meet you, too.  
And I'm Thomas.

Times like this, I'm almost glad that there aren't many people left in the world. Nobody has the time to struggle through formalities any more, we just jump straight onto using first names and acting as if we've always known each other. I'm just about to head out for a smoke, Pedro's saying, when I come back, and when you settle, would you like to join me for a drink?  
Sure, why not.  
Excellent. I'll see you at the bar. Including you there should be about six, seven of us there tonight.  
  
Not a minute after he leaves, one of the admins come around. Good evening, she says briskly. Were you out there for long?  
Three days.  
Three days, she repeats, making a note of it. We give her our service numbers as well. I suppose you boys are seeking him as well.  
We are, yes. Any news on that?  
Not within fifty miles of here. I was wondering whether you could tell us more about it, really. And about anything else you encountered.  
Most logs are electronic, easily sent to one another, transferred onto a USB stick, put in cloud storage or whatever. But we use actual notepads to write things down, too. Let's see, Guy says, taking his out and scrutinizing the page. Two robots decommissioned yesterday morning, conflict lasted from five past five to thirteen past five. Bangalter shot the first one thirty-six seconds into the conflict and that was an immediate kill; the other eluded us for the rest of the encounter, finished it off with two shots of my rifle. We checked that they were offline before we left. Nothing after that until roughly four hours before we got here; five decommissioned at that point, they attempted an ambush on us during a dust storm. Co-ordinates are in the log. Bangalter shot one, I got the rest. Nothing lost nor salvaged during either encounter. No sightings of our target, indeed no sightings of any soldier or human being since we set off.  
Excellent, boys. Excellent. If I could have the logs, please.

Only when they're transferred are we allowed into the quarters properly to rest. We shouldn't need our armour during our next bout of travel; we're covering terrain better handled without all the bulk, so they'll be charged and sent off to the next base ahead of us. (Part of me wonders why we can't go ahead and ride along _with_ the armour, but oh well, _someone_ needs to scout the area. Who knows, maybe we'll find our target on the way.) But our records are still covered, no mistake about that - Guy has the two of us wear a camera every time we go on a mission, regardless of how much gear we're carrying or how long we're out on the field. When I first came here I noticed him making detailed logs of every encounter and even slightly significant event, so I began doing the same; our recordkeeping is immaculate. It was quite a while before I realized that this was protocol followed by only a select few - there aren't enough people who care to look through the accounts of every soldier out there - but that only gives us a major advantage in that it's _very_ hard to suspect us of misdemeanor. Not when we are so willing to tell our superiors every single detail of what happened while we were out there, with plenty of evidence to back it up.

But the thing is, neither of us are particularly meticulous-looking. Especially Guy. It takes people by surprise when he's giving a report and details miles beyond what they were even looking for come out his mouth. Outside of the field, he's not precise about anything. Never measures out his ingredients when he cooks, when he cuts his hair it's only ever according to what 'roughly looks' right to him, doesn't have a fixed time when he wakes up or goes to bed, and so on.  
Guy is a man of numbers. But you wouldn't know that unless you were around him a lot.

\-----

I haven't been in the military for as long as Guy, but I do have _some_ stories in me.  
Let me tell you one. It'll explain a thing or two.

\-----

It's midwinter. I'm on my very first mission, having known my partner and mentor-figure - or having been a soldier at all, rather - for all of three and a half weeks. As much as I don't like being defined by my current state of affairs, I am about as rookie as they come. I've come to trust Guy, though I still don't _know_ a great deal about him; I've mostly been concerned about pulling my weight.

Not here, I call out as I leave an emptied house. It was already a mess when I entered, the elements having gotten to it via the broken windows and back door; no signs of a struggle, though, I can only guess that the occupants left in a hurry before the soldiers got to them. Find anything, Guy?  
No. Let's move on.

We're in the town of Independence, Inyo County, California. (After this mission and another, we will leave California altogether. At this point the thought of actually patrolling and living in the nearby Mojave doesn't even cross our minds.) A sedentary robot population, made up of some of the old _originals,_ used to live there before the town was purged a year ago. We're here because there's been a few unconfirmed reports that some robots might have returned there to settle, or that they'd been living in hiding all along; it's a fairly standard patrol mission, with orders to capture any robot we see and bring them back.

Well, we didn't see any robots, I should get that out of the way now. Plenty of decommissioned ones, but none that were alive. Didn't get attacked during the mission, either, by anything. A complete ghost town. There wouldn't even really be a story to tell about if not for what happened in the house after the one I just talked about  
Imagine it, if you may. The next house is well-organized and clean. The door is even locked. At least, it's locked until I break through it with my foot. All we find is emptiness and dust, furniture with no owner still set up as it was left, anticipating owners who would never come back. I can see how it was before the pattern of their lives were disrupted. Here is the table. The chairs. Ottoman in the living room. A book lying open, fine dust having settled over the pages, spine crackling under its own weight. (I seem to remember that it was a _Bible?_ ) We scout separately; nothing of value or danger is found at my end, and after looking through the living room and bathroom I go to join Guy. He's in a bedroom, examining something on the ground. Here. Come have a look at this, he says.  
Why, what is it?

He stands up and shows me. It's smaller than I expected, and dusty, but otherwise intact and immediately recognizable. An abacus. Funny there should be one here.  
I reach for it and he lets me take it while he takes a closer look at the surroundings. The abacus looks well-used, its brown wooden beads shiny and somewhat worn from however many hours of counting. A polished rectangular frame enclosing twelve rows of beads, ten beads in each row, pinned together with steel rods - clearly handmade, with fine quality wood. It's almost a shame, when I know that that we'll have to leave it behind as well - no spoils are to be taken from houses, regardless of if they're empty or not - but its simple elegance and its very presence captures my attention. What use would the robots have had for an _abacus_? I sit down at the desk, tilting the abacus to reset all of the beads and setting it up in position. Theoretically I knew how these work, but it's still a quaint device to me.

One, I count off the beads on the top row, pushing it to the empty space on the right. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight-  
Seven's a good number, Guy interrupts from behind me, and I start. I hadn't even known that he was watching. May I.  
Sure.

I stand up and he sits down where I was, turning the abacus over in his hands. I wonder if I can make it. My number.  
What?  
_My_ number, he repeats as if that makes immediate sense. When he sees that it doesn't, he continues on. An important one. That long ago was when I had to stop being a chain-smoker in Montparnasse and become a chain-smoker wandering the earth instead. Aye?

Why would he say 'aye' in the first place, you ask? Habit, mostly, nothing more to it; before he told me the story behind it, of which there isn't actually much to tell, I thought he'd picked it up from being amongst other nationals in the military for so long. The truth isn't far off - as a child he lived for a couple of years in England, before he returned to Paris at twelve years of age. While he's told me that he regretfully remembers very little of what occurred at that time, the country did make a strong impression on him; to this day Englishmen who hear him will swear upon that rough, affectionate northern brogue lurking beneath his usually calm, foreign, liquid-smooth voice. But I'm getting off track. Back to the story. So without waiting for a further response from me, he pulls the abacus close to him, and counts the rows quietly under his breath before he counts off the seven initial beads on the first row.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven.

He counts in English. It's very important that you know that. Every word is loud and clear.

One.

He pushes one bead on the next row down to the right, determining the value of the next few rows of beads to come. Then he counts off the beads on rows three to eight.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Thirty-four. Thirty-five. Thirty-six. Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine. Forty. Forty-one. Forty-two. Forty-three. Forty-four. Forty-five. Forty-six. Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty-nine. Fifty. Fifty-one. Fifty-two.

Staring at the row of beads.

Fifty-two sevens.

If somebody had snuck up on us during this moment, I can tell you, I wouldn't have noticed. He wouldn't have, either.  
He moves onto the ninth row. Fingers trembling a little, but when I look at him, his face remains calm and even serene.

One.

I suppose he had to be zen about it.  
His entire situation, I mean. And it being nothing more than complete and utter _bullshit._

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.

Purgatory. Following the stairs in the wrong direction, down to hell.

He looks up.  
Nine fifty-two sevens, he says, and smiles at me. It doesn't reach his eyes.

\-----

I don't go drinking with Guy and Pedro. If I may be so honest, like I've already been, I never really wanted to. There isn't anything wrong with Guy being there, of course. What I'm taking issue is the way Pedro looked at _me_ when Guy was telling him his name, one of pure sympathy, telling me: _you poor sod_. Guy's fairly well-known among those in the state, at least. He's not the highest ranking soldier and as far as I know he hasn't done anything mindblowingly insane or heroic in his time; he's just been around for so long, and under increasingly unlikely circumstances, that word got around. Not good ones, either.

Guy's my first and so far only partner. I am his eleventh partner in nine years.  
With his rank he really ought to be in charge of a squad at least, but not only are there a severe lack of people to go around, the fact that people around him keep on dying is a huge black mark against him. Nobody fucks around with Guy, but I get the feeling that people don't really like him, either. It's that or they're actually _scared_ of him, and it's got nothing to do with the kind of personality he has. Almost a full squad of soldiers died while they were partnered with him, or shortly afterwards; people notice things like that, and when they notice, they don't tend to like what they can glean from it.

It's easier for them to think that Guy _brings misfortune,_ or that he's a coward who left his partners to take the blows in his stead, than to consider the possibility that war is a shitty situation for _everyone_. Those people? They just got unlucky. Guy? He got unlucky. That's all there is. Hell, I'm trying _my_ hardest not to die, but if I did, I really doubt that he'd be the one to blame, unless he literally grabbed me and used me as a human shield.

That's what made me angry. That _look_. Implying that because I'm around Guy, I'm probably going to die soon.  
What the fuck kind of impression is that to make on somebody you just met.

Right as I'm thinking that there's a knock on the door. Coming, I shout, and open it to find Guy tumbling into my arms, drunk out of his mind.  
Um. What the fuck?

Sorry about that, another voice calls from the doorway and my heart sinks. It's Pedro himself, red-faced, meekly rubbing his forehead. I told him that he ought to stop, but apparently - uh - not soon enough. You need help getting him in there?  
No thanks, I say curtly as I help Guy over to the bed. He's already seen and heard too much, it doesn't need adding onto.  
The best advice I can offer, Guy slurs out as I lay him down. His hand clutches at mine and I almost wince at how tight his grip is. The best advice... regarding all that _coffee_... is this. Eat your coffee beans straight from the bag. Just eat it. _All of it_. Eat all the coffee all at once. In the store, if you want, in your home, if you want. Ground, raw, roasted, whatever. And then go and buy another bag and eat that one too and then repeat the process. Repeat it forever. Just eat every coffee bean and then die and leave a corpse that is mostly coffee. That's what you get for hoarding the shit that'd be best off shared amongst everybody. You whiny motherfucker. Then his hand slacks and he rolls over to his side, facing away from the doorway, immediately fast asleep.  
  
I look up at Pedro. What the hell is he talking about?  
That guy you're both chasing. In the nearest base from where he was last seen, two sackfuls of coffee beans went missing, and the guy might have had something to do with it. At least, he seems to think so, he answers, frowning in Guy's direction. I don't actually know why he'd think that a man on the run would want to steal entire sacks of coffee, but there you go. He probably latched onto that before he got too drunk to think.  
Coffee's a valuable commodity. Maybe he took it to bargain or something, you can't really dismiss that.  
But he does. You sure you didn't see anything while you were out there, he asks instead. I don't mean just the guy. Just... _nothing._ No humans, no animals, nothing new or spectacular or disturbing that might have affected _him_.  
Nothing. I tell him, because, well, it's the truth. We saw nothing.  
That still explains a great deal, actually, Pedro says, shaking his head. His disgruntlement has changed to nothing but genuine pity, of _understanding_ , but honestly speaking it just pisses me off. Nothing, for the whole three days?  
Pretty much. The 'bots don't really count.  
Well, I don't imagine that they do. I can barely stand it either, when I go out. When all I see is sand and dirt and the occasional plant, and most of the other things only approach me so they could have a go at killing me. And _I_ don't even have a partner. ( _It's not too hard to see why_ , I add silently at that point.) So yeah, that's understandable. Enough to drive a man half mad.

But Guy isn't mad. If _he's_ mad, then everybody else here is, including myself.  
Don't talk about him like that, I snap at him, and before he can respond I shut the door in his face.

Madness in the form of obsession, love, or genius has always been what's propelling the human race forward, into progress, or its own destruction, or whatever. It's pretty rich for us to resist it _now_ just because things aren't going the way we want them to.

\-----

I feel nothing, nothing. I feel nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is written for corpuswalker from tumblr.  
> I intended this to be a Christmas piece (because I'm a spoilsport like that and delight in producing depressing/sad stuff during the holidays), and to an extent it is - but not because it has anything to do with Christmas per se. Just wanted to get a fic out for that time. Unfortunately it got longer than I was expecting, by a wide margin, and I fell ill for several days, which hampered my progress significantly; nevertheless this is out now, and it's a three-parter. It should be done sooner than later. Most of it's written.
> 
> I wondered whether to take it directly versus the humans and the machines.  
> But I'd have mangled it completely, and besides, the world I envisioned - the wasteland, devoid of both people and robots, devoid of morality or purpose - suited _loneliness_ much better, that of company that one would die trying to keep. The machine war here is pretty much at an endgame, but it will drag on and on, only pointless selfishness sustaining it. 
> 
> What else is new.


	2. ἀληθείᾳ

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are **trigger warnings** in this chapter for fairly graphic violence, including details of a suicide attempt.  
>  I'd proceed with caution.

**Parabellum (Part Two) - _'ἀληθείᾳ'_**

\----------------------------

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will. My rifle and I know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count. My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. _We_ will, we will, we will. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviours of my life.  
  
...  
  
Every morning as the clock strikes six. Good morning, Thomas. Good morning, all.  
  
I still recite this, even though there is no _country_ nor hope of peace to swear it to any more.  
Hey, at least my gun actually exists. My gun, and my partner. My best friends.  
  
\-----  
  
I just realized that I never actually said anything about our mission, despite making a big deal out of it earlier.  
So here it is. We're on a manhunt.  
  
Target information:  
Fellow soldier. Rank Private First Class. (Name redacted.)  
Was stationed on the far eastern end of the Mojave, on one of the major bases.  
He killed four fellow soldiers and fled in the dead of the night. Currently on the run for a week now, and ongoing.  
Last we checked, over thirty soldiers from all corners of the desert were out to get him. Guy and I are part of this operation.  
Last sighting, three days ago, riding on a stolen military vehicle. They managed to secure the vehicle, but he escaped.  
  
So plenty of people are on the case, as you can see, and every single one of them knows who to look for and what happened. Not many are questioning why or how it happened, though, from what I've gathered over the past week.  
But that's okay. Guy and I speculate enough for all of them. We both rather despise the guy for what he's done, and we're eager to capture him as anybody else; at the same time, had things been better around here, I don't think we'd have also _pitied_ him quite as much as we currently do.  
  
Don't get me wrong. You injure a comrade to save your own skin, or abandon them, and you're already scum. Actually _killing_ several and fleeing into the great unknown? Unforgivable. He more than deserves his current state of running for his own life, a fugitive in the desert, where it's only a matter of time before either nature or someone on this side will catch up to him. I can't imagine how his current state of affairs could be in any way _pleasant_ , regardless of whether he evades capture or not. Best case scenario for him is that he manages to leave the desert and into more wasteland, where he will more than likely run out of supplies and die. (But on his own feet.)  
But at the same time - considering our situation, the heat, the isolation, the loss of freedom - I sort of understand _why_ he flipped, I guess. I wouldn't be caught saying that out loud, but to a certain extent, I _am_ sympathetic. I think it'd be crueler not to be.  
  
Not too far into the distance, the lone sands cease to stretch, giving way to patches of shrubbery and what is the beginnings of a field. The grass is light and thin, but it's a vibrant, healthy green nevertheless. There's a waterhole near here. It's not along the path we ought to be taking and we've never visited, but we know it's there, and we need it now; call it a pilgrimage.  
Guy leads, whistling a tuneless song. Our walk is fast but casual and jaunty, and at some point he outstretches his hand and takes mine. His palms are smoothened and calloused and the faint dotted imprint from the butt of his rifle remains there for a few seconds, enough for me to trace it, steady Braille that says nothing and means everything.  
  
There seems to be more oases in the Mojave than I thought, I say out loud.  
There _are_. Probably the only good thing that happened in this wasteland since the war began.  
That's our doing, isn't it?  
Mm. Nobody intended it, it just happened.  
I can see the waterhole ahead. Is that the one we want? I ask.  
Oh yes, he says. Apparently it's nice enough, the water's very clean.  
  
It's quite big. No animals nearby, and it doesn't look like anyone else was there.  
Are you out of water? Guy asks from beside me, unshouldering his backpack; it slides down one of his arms and he lightly grabs the top of it before it hits the ground, groping around for the zip. I know that I am.  
I am, too, I think. I've only got this one canteen left.  
Neither of us comment on how dangerous this would have been, had the desert not been so intimately known to us.  
  
It is probably easier to humans to navigate the desert than ever before. Most of it's mapped, and we're never cut off from communication; we know where all the bases, waterholes, oases and safe sites to rest in are. They're generally reliable.  
Whether we _find_ anybody in them is quite another gamble altogether. A lot of the time we don't; we've gone just short of three weeks without seeing anybody before. There's a few people manning the bases because they have to, but otherwise we don't see a wink of most of the others. No polluted waters or hints of a recently-present camp. There just aren't enough people in this place, and indeed the world, to fill the emptiness back up again. There can't be more than two hundred soldiers at most occupying the Mojave area; about the same number of machines are on the prowl, and you'd think they'd have overcome us easily by this point if they're so replaceable, but for some reason that still hasn't happened. So it's just us and the robots, really. A disappointingly small number of individuals, all of whom know the desert like the back of their hand, circling each other forever.  
  
It's sort of ridiculous, but at least it's not really _dangerous_ being out here. Too empty.  
It's not the robots, or the harshness of nature, that kills you. It's just the loneliness.  
  
That is sort of what I fear, if I'm honest. For us, and for the man we're chasing. Part of me thinks that he is facing the sheer depth of his solitude in the desert - if he thought he was isolated before, he definitely will be, now - and that he is either dying or currently dead from it. And out of either malice or pity, I kind of want this to be the case. Whether because I _want_ him to suffer, or because I _don't_ want him to suffer even more in the hands of other soldiers, I don't know. Either way, it probably means something dreadfully unhealthy for my psyche, not that I'd ever admit it. Guy in the meanwhile gestures at me to go ahead while he rummages through his backpack.  
  
After you.  
_Non, non._ After you.  
  
I back away. He always has to go first, because he's a higher rank than I am; I don't feel comfortable drinking first anyway, I refuse even when he offers. So he doesn't protest that. What he generally does is that he leans over and fills up one of his canteens first, taking a swig out of it to fulfil the basic sense of the rule, before he steps back and nods at me to drink however much I want; I in turn try to be quick about it. That way we both get to be polite, and get what we need while feeling less bad about it. When I feel less thirsty, I step back, and sit down by the bank to undo my backpack and get out my canteens.  
  
There is something serene about the way that we mutually lean over and let the water swirl into the containers. We unscrew the cap, let it pop open, and kneel down to face the surface of the water, holding the open end to the shifting light. The canteens fill quietly, bulging a little at the sides, and when they're full they politely tell us of that fact by attempting to sink downwards in our hands.  
  
The water is cold, just as sweet as Guy said it would be; there was a faint aftertaste of iron, but I didn't tell him that, and besides it was not an _unpleasant_ taste. The sun heats the canteens in our backpacks and by our sides, it doesn't take too long before they're too warm and tepid to be enjoyable. This water was safe, had flavour, and was cold; what else could I ask for?  
  
Guy says that this waterhole has grown since its position was recorded. Neither of us can confirm it proper, but he tends to be fairly good at measuring by eye. Considering what's happening to the desert, too, I wholeheartedly believe him - when people left the nearby area, or else died, the surroundings fell into disrepair and was reclaimed by nature. It's perfectly understandable. We withdrew, so they advanced, and because we weren't around messing up the environment any more, other life could move back in and flourish again. Deserts stopped expanding; weathers began to vary a little again; plants began to grow on the edges of the desert once more, moving inwards slowly, filling it back up with earth's delights. It can only be the expected thing, whether good or bad for us.  
  
Life carried on. It's just that human beings didn't.  
  
\-----  
  
We were planning to move on immediately, but it's too nice of a day. So atop that hill we stop for lunch. Rifles are put aside, jackets open to let the heat out, our backpacks laid unceremoniously on the ground and pillowed upon with our heads. Pulling my helmet off. brushing the dry locks of my hair from my eyes, I sit across from Guy and lie down on the soft sandy grass. The breeze tickles my face. Guy watches me out of the corner of his eye as he pulls out two MREs and hands one to me.  
  
Chicken with noodles. His is tomato penne I think. Those who forget the pasta are condemned to reheat it, or something.  
  
Guy's a slow eater, like everyone ought to be. Every chew is thoughtful and filled with an odd gratitude. He's the type to have wiled away countless hours in small smoky-corner bistros and underrated cafes back in France, savouring every meal he could get his hands on, a gourmet after his time. Take your time while you've got it, comrade, he says.  
  
\-----  
  
He wants to know about me, and what I did in the past.  
  
In peacetime that'd likely have been taken as anything from a sign of budding friendship all the way to intimacy. But what I mean is something more simple than that: curiosity and entertainment. There isn't much for us to do in the desert, and the two of us are having a fairly hard time trying to keep to the urgency of the mission. With no frame of reference - no shouted orders, no fellow soldiers nearby or even the indication that what we're doing is effective - it's only inevitable that our minds began wandering. We have a rough schedule to keep to (certain bases to reach at certain times, reports to be made regularly and all) but we know the desert well and we walk so fast, Guy and I - so, well, where's the hurry?  
  
And that's just this mission, of course. We're perpetually curious about each other anyway. I was a civilian for longer and Guy often asks me what my past life was like: what I did during childhood and while I was at school, where I went to university (he never set foot in one, even though he'd had a place), my hobbies, the friends I had, that kind of thing. I'm never really convinced that those things really interest him, because they were all so deeply average compared to the kind of things I see now, but then I see the bright look in his eyes as I tell him some of my stories and I can't go on thinking that in honesty.  
  
He has stories from before the war, too, of course. Interesting ones, if briefer than mine.  
And when it comes to spending the time lost in idle pursuits, he's a champion at that. I can tell now, for instance, that Guy's just as reluctant to move on from this quiet peaceful spot; so I ask him about his boyhood, we get talking, and before long (and just for fun) he's teaching me to catch a sparrow. Guy lends me his helmet for the task; we search around for a stick, sturdy enough to support its weight but short and frail enough to be tugged free easily, and prop up the helmet with it in the sand. To the end of the stick we tie a long piece of twine. In the shade afforded within this construction, we sprinkle some biscuit crumbs mixed in with shelled sunflower seeds, and only then do we withdraw a distance away to watch.  
  
I started on sunflower seeds to stop myself smoking. I just ended up doing both. Might as well put them to another use.  
  
The first couple of attempts are a failure: the piece of twine is too long the first time around, and the tug doesn't go through in time to catch the startled bird. The second time, we're waiting for the right moment when the rustle from a nearby yucca tree scares it away. But it's third time lucky; we hold our breath as the sparrow bounces lightly over the sand, tilting its little head to the side for only a moment, then flitting its wing as it wilfully hops into the shade and starts pecking away. With a signal from Guy we both tug on the twine - the stick is pulled loose - and before the bird can make another move, it's trapped under the helmet just as we intended.  
  
Got it! Guy laughs as we scramble over the bushes and go to check. I lift up the helmet and stick one hand inside, feeling around for the bird; it doesn't even move as I grasp it securely around the wings, just about leaving its feet free to avoid being clawed at, and lift it out. Only when sunlight hits it does it begin to squirm and chirp again, beak opening and closing, and when I brush over its back with my thumb its feathers are warm and silky beneath my roughened skin.  
  
The moment of triumph doesn't last long. Before long I'm standing there thinking: _well, what now?_  
I think of what Guy told me while we were both setting up the helmet and stick. I've never had cause to catch a sparrow in my life, so at some point I asked him what the act of catching one was _meant_ to accomplish.  
  
A multitude of reasons, but the basic purpose is exactly as it sounds. You catch a sparrow. Maybe you want to play with it a little before letting it go, or a sparrow flew into your room and you desperately need to get it out. Maybe you just like the thrill of catching one, maybe you're hungry, though you'd also need some salt handy for that, I guess...  
_What_ does a sparrow taste like and why do you know this?  
Bitter, he said. A bit tough, too. But if you're hungry enough you'd eat anything, I'd know. I've had to.  
  
Funny. We just had lunch.  
  
From the way he's looking at me, I think it's safe to assume that he wants to leave the sparrow's fate in my hands. It's also probably not the case that we want to eat it or do anything to it; what more remains, then, other than to let it go? I gaze down at it and it gazes back at me, peeping anxiously away, and I fancy that it's begging to be let out in the sweetest, most desperate tones possible. Its black eyes gleam in the sunlight, bright and clear like obsidian, and I am suddenly aware of its small heart pounding in its ribcage - against my skin - how delicate it is, yet how strong, at the same time.  
  
Then I make up my mind.  
I open my hands, slowly, freeing its wings, then its legs, allowing it to stretch and fly once more. The sparrow flutters from my hands eagerly - perches itself briefly atop Guy's head (he wrinkles his nose a little, left cheek dimpling as he smiles) - and then flies off into the distance, the bluegrey sky backdrop against its small body as its flight gains strength. Soon it's no more than a little speck of brown against the clouds, then not even that, as it disappears into freedom and oblivion.  
  
With liberty comes the leap of faith into white nothing. Maybe they're the same idea, I don't know.  
  
Until the sparrow is out of sight I stand there, watching its wings spread and flutter with great speed. I hope we didn't frighten it too much. _Goodbye_ , I whisper just to myself, so quietly that Guy won't hear. (It's not as if he's paying attention, either.) My still-cupped hands feel a little empty, the fragile warmth of the sparrow already beginning to melt away. I slowly loosen them, close my fingers once, twice, feeling the sensation fade and disappear altogether. For once, they held life, and I miss it already. Weren't you going to need that sparrow for something, I ask.  
  
Guy just shrugs and shifts his weight. For what?  
  
\-----  
  
Maman used to tell me that rain was angels weeping.  
  
It's raining now. I haven't seen rain in months. We take our helmets off and let the rain wash over our faces. Guy ties up his hair.  
If rain's no more than the tears of angels, are deserts forsaken by them? Has heaven abandoned this land and its people?  
  
Are we no longer loved?  
  
\-----  
  
Which brings me to the question everyone has eventually. _Do soldiers wait for the one they love, find comfort elsewhere, or what?_  
My answer: I don't know what you're talking about, because I'm not in love with anybody. I don't even have any _loved ones_ such as family or non-romantic friends, they all left the earth a long time ago. I confess that I don't even think about _them_ most of the time. Why should I? They can't suffer any more, and besides, the chances of us surviving this war is so low that I just assume that I'm going to join them sooner rather than later, anyway.  
  
That's what I feel about real people who I actually loved. Sex might as well be dark matter to me. But many people can't understand that, so any time we're on a base or just chilling around others, they keep asking.  
It makes trying to enter polite society exhausting as hell, I tell you, it's not fun. There's irony in there somewhere.  
  
People talk about the two of us. It's not just us, I'm sure every two-soldier unit gets this at some point. Almost everybody we know, even.  
Most of the time it's just teasing, but it happens so goddamn often that I wonder if they're trying to plant some kind of seed of truth between Guy and myself. And the thing is, it's not going to happen, you know? I just don't feel that for him, and as far as I know, he doesn't either. But I'm only human, and no matter how long I live there are always going to be things that I don't know, so - all those comments, they do make me wonder sometimes.  
  
We've stopped by another oasis for the night.  
All our canteens and containers are filled up with the water we need, we've eaten and drunk our fill; Guy's now washing his face, disturbing the surface of the water in long ripples. At some point he unties his hair and lets it fall loose and heavy down to his shoulders, and maybe some people would read something else from this sight, something that the actual picture is not. I don't know what that 'something else' is that I'm meant to be seeing. The long sweep of his hair and the water trickling down his face makes an impression on me, but what I can read from it isn't love or attraction.  
It's life.  
  
Say, I break the silence. He's getting ready to wind down for the day, stretching his arms to loosen them. His back arches alongside them. Guy. You know what the other guys tell us? Whenever we're at a base or when we meet a few out on the field or whatever?  
  
I wait. Guy doesn't say a damn thing, so I carry on. When they ask us if we're _attached_. You ever thought about that? Like, for real?  
  
He regards me with a puzzled grin, tilting his head to the side like a songbird. Then he looks away and resumes what he was doing. I don't fiddle kids, he says languidly, stretching against the sun.  
You're _months_ older than I am, Guy. And I'm not a kid.  
I know. I still don't fiddle kids. Nobody should.  
Guy-Manuel. I swear to fucking God.  
He moves onto stretching his legs. I'm nearly thirty but _I_ don't feel like an adult, he says, tossing his hair back over his ear. If I don't feel grown-up, I can only assume that you probably don't either, and as I said - I'd rather all my partners be consenting adults. And even if you do feel like an adult, you're just going to have to humour me for the time being.  
How long removed from thirty, I ask.  
Not sure. Weeks. Days. Today. Months. Can't be sure of anything nowadays.  
  
Anybody else would actually have bought that. But I don't, because I've gotten to know him too well, and I like to think that I know him better than any partner or comrade he was ever with. Someone who keeps track of time so meticulously couldn't have forgotten something as basic as how old he is, yeah?  
He was bullshitting me. The only way to deal is to do it right back. How, um, how old am I again, Guy?  
You don't look a day over eighteen, my fine friend.  
Bizarre. I thought I was twenty-eight for a second. Though I suppose it's easy to forget, it keeps changing.  
  
That gets his attention. He stops stretching and raises his eyebrows at me.  
How can it keep changing. It's your age.  
Every year your age changes, asshole. Now cut the crap and tell me like how you should have from the start. How old are you, Guillaume?  
And that sobers him up; he raises his eyebrows, impressed. No matter how minor or silly it is, we're always challenging each other, and I think he's _glad_ whenever he's bested. He turns fully to face me, and actually ponders for a while, eyes glancing towards the heavens.  
  
My birthday's ten and a half weeks away, he says, and nods to himself. Yeah, that's about right. And I'll be twenty-nine.  
Thank you fucking very much, I respond, and I'm already smiling. I've almost forgotten the original topic during all of this, though telling myself that brings it back all over again. A straight answer out of you for once. So you see, I'm not a kid.  
Hah. Though I wasn't joking all that much, Thomas. I have to work hard to keep all of those dates in mind, because there are _dozens._ It's kind of disconcerting, not remembering your age.  
What, to you personally? How come?  
Well, if you don't know your age, how can you act it?  
Haha. Guy. _Day_ -um. Is that some philosophy I hear there?  
_Oh, touché._ But he's laughing too.  
  
It's too dark to do much now besides talk. He comes to sit next to me. And this is why you still might as well be a kid, he says - so gently, too, so that I can't being myself to respond for a moment. It doesn't make sense to you yet that knowing your age entails living it.  
Fuck acting your age, is the only thing I can initially muster up when my voice comes back. (Lame, I know.) What's the oldest thing out there? Rocks. The earth beneath us. The oceans. The ocean is older than we can reasonably comprehend and the water is wide but it'll still drown my ass with vigour, I can promise you that. What does acting my age matter.  
All right, all right, he laughs, shaking his head; I neither pursue my case nor give assent to what he said, probably because deep in my mind I know that everything he said _is_ true. It isn't like he's wrong, after all, I'm not too far from thirty myself and I'm reached the point in my life where acting my age can only help my case, not disadvantage it. But Thom, about the being attached thing?  
Mmh?  
Why did you ask in the first place?  
  
Thom?  
Yeah, uh.  
  
I'm trying to answer Guy as honestly as I am able, but it's so hard. I'm not sure how to explain it, is what I end up saying. I've been around a while in here and I sometimes feel like... I'm missing something? Or rather, I'm _meant_ to feel as if I'm missing something? I haven't got family or friends to write to, I don't plan on getting married or have a partner or anything. Even if the war ended tomorrow - I'd probably be anxious to make friends again, for sure, but I feel like I could live the rest of my life without all the romance stuff. I don't really _care_ about romance or sex, I guess. Am I weird because of that?  
Why, Guy shakes his head firmly. Not at all.  
How do you feel about it? You've had girlfriends.  
He considers. Not just _girlfriends,_ he eventually says. But practicality's won out since I became a soldier, I suppose. I'm not exactly in a position to romance anybody and I don't feel like it, either, not when I've got all of _this_ in my mind. It'd be nice, but I don't _long_ for it. And I've always... just liked whomever I liked, regardless of whatever they had downstairs. It's hard enough trying to meet people, let alone form a connection with them, I'm not sure I need _more_ restrictions on that.  
I see.  
Aye. Like whoever you like, don't force it upon anybody, hope that things match up. If they do, great. If they don't, move on. If you don't feel anything, then well, that's just it. Be kind, and you'll be okay.  
And don't fiddle kids.  
And don't fiddle kids. That's a given. Sorry I can't give more concrete advice, that's just how I've went about life and that's all I know. Though honestly - you don't really need advice. There's nothing even wrong with you.  
  
I know that logically, but it doesn't help me feeling that way. It isn't much of a consolation.  
I don't bring that up, though. What would the use of that be? I wouldn't agree that I _don't_ need advice, I probably wouldn't have asked you about this if I felt that way, I say to him. Still, thanks for telling me, it does help hearing it from somebody who won't mock me.  
I wouldn't ever dream of mocking you, Thomas, he says, and follows it up with nothing else. That's how I know he means it. He's apologetic for what he can't quite help me out with, and because of that he's not making excuses or trying to reassure me with empty words. That's consolation enough for me.  
  
I do wonder, though. What _it_ feels like.  
Maybe like cotton candy. Soft, heartwarming. Light. Sweet. Like a long-lost memory, a treat, what made innocent times complete. All of those are nice things, but I sure as hell wouldn't devote my whole life to it or define myself by it. I've thought about this countless times now in brief flashes, twice or three times in full - like this account - and every time it's been a disappointing, confusing conclusion. It's all very frustrating to explain my attitude towards love to people. It's even worse that it took me all of those words to justify it, even, when a lot of others can get by with a sentence or two. Something about it being difficult to define yourself by the absence of a thing.  
  
Don't take that as a sign that I'm repressed, or that I just haven't found the right person, or anything. That might well be the case, but I'm fairly confident that it's not, and only I get a say on what happens to me and my whatever-loves-there-are. I suppose I just wonder because everyone else does, because everyone else asks, and I've got to have some answer handy. Or at least, I should come to peace with things like this before I die. Our life expectancies are too short now to leave life's problems unsolved.  
I do wonder sometimes, but no more than that.  
  
That's probably for the best. My priorities stay Guy, myself, and not getting the either of us killed.  
What's the use in pondering over something as abstract as - well, _this,_ when I have real-life people to protect?  
  
\-----  
  
The afternoon is high above us and we kick up small clouds of dust as we walk, a light almost-breeze dancing about our bodies. It's nice and cool, for the standards of the desert. We're not far from where we stopped for the night, because it's proving to be such a beautiful day, and we're both _sentimental,_ all things considered. The ground has flattened to a rough and easily walkable sand plain and the footprints we leave upon it last a while, as opposed to being covered up again swiftly. Some forty-five miles ahead lies another base, even though from what I remember hearing two days ago, it might not be currently occupied - at best we'd be able to make use of the supplies there and move on after a night's sleep or two, at worst we might not even be able to gain access. But we'll cross that bridge when it comes to it. Sunlight tickles at our unprotected faces, long since tanned, as we carry on following our required path, talking all the while. I started talking about the parties I used to crash when I was younger and more foolish, and somehow we've diverged so far from there that we've begun talking contraband. No, we don't smuggle. Don't go around accusing us of it, if you could.  
  
In any unit there is at least _one_ person who knows how to get things in, Guy's saying, rifle behind his shoulder as he walks. Doesn't matter what it is. Put anything in front of them and they'll find out a way to smuggle it in somehow, whether by organizing some crazy-ass operation filled with the most unlikely people, taking it to pieces and building it back up, swallowing it, whatever. Swallowing's a popular method, actually, if you can move fast enough and if whatever you're trying to smuggle in is small enough. I knew a guy who brought five hundred dollars' worth of coke in with him. No one asked him to, but he did. Put them in condoms, tied them up in tiny packages, swallowed the lot. He might as well have been king among our ranks for the rest of that year.  
What, he took all that effort and didn't even take any for himself? Harsh.  
Well, he brought _five hundred dollars'_ worth of drugs. What _else_ would he have done with it? Take it all and die?  
I laugh, although I shouldn't have, for one of two reasons: death by cocaine isn't funny, and I could have used the time I laughed to say something that mattered, instead. I don't get that chance, because the instant I stop and try to say something I hear a harsh buzzing sound coming from Guy's pocket. Sometimes the sand sings soft and eerie beneath our feet as the wind tosses them about, but it's not that; this is a warning from our scanner, telling us that it's found something and that whatever it found _isn't good._  
  
We look at each other, suddenly afraid to move. The sound repeats, louder this time.  
  
Death is especially not funny when you might be staring it in the face.  
  
You heard that? I finally manage to whisper.  
Guy doesn't say a damn thing. But the look on his face is frozen. That's when I figure that he heard too, all right. Standing stiff (and with that look still on his face) he reaches in his pocket for the scanner, moving only one arm and being very slow and awkward about it - me, though, I would have done the exact same. I can barely breathe. I don't even dare to make another sound or close my eyes.  
  
This is one thing I detest about the Mojave. The desert makes it hard to tell if what you're seeing is real or not, until it is too close.  
At least if the expanse is completely open with no shadows nor mountains nearby, there isn't much there for you to mistake as something else; in that kind of environment, providing that you are 100% certain of there being nobody else around you, the most you've got to worry about is the standard mirage of an oasis. (Which, despite being something that everyone knows about, is still irritating and possibly fatal. I'm aware that it's not much of a consolation.) But now we're in an area with small rock formations and spindly yucca trees and long shadows stretching haphazardly into the distance and I can't trust anything I see out of the corner of my eye. You're lucky to fall for a mirage of an oasis and nothing else, in that case. If you're unlucky, you think those strange dark shapes in the horizon don't actually exist. That you're just seeing things.  
That is, before your head caves in. I suppose you don't think anything after that.  
  
Guy sometimes sees his dead comrades ambling over the sand. Hallucinations, he said, when he first told me about it. Something as detailed as dead men walking _have_ to be hallucinations. They aren't just reflections or me mistaking something else for them. What I see _literally doesn't exist._ And I get fooled a lot by all of those shadows, too, so you shouldn't take my word a hundred-per-cent regarding the kind of things I see. Be very careful, he said. When it really comes down to it, trust yourself and your rifle. Nothing else.  
Not even you?  
Trust me inasmuch as I am a person who exists and is on your side. Like, if you see me next to you, you ideally shouldn't aim for my head just because you can't confirm that I'm _actually_ there. You can't always trust the kind of things that I say that I see, though. And if I die, and you have to carry on alone, and somehow you manage to see me - well, then I'm probably not going to be real in that scenario, either. Better safe than sorry.  
  
I didn't question if he was living by the exact same creed. Whether he'd shoot me, or the illusion of me, in that same situation. If I don't want frightening answers I'm best off not asking the frightening questions in the first place.  
  
Dark shapes on the horizon. Like people, almost, standing and waiting.  
  
I know that they aren't generally real. They live in my head, until I kill them.  
  
Do you see anything, I ask Guy.  
He holds up his scanner wordlessly. Six blips, stationary for the time being, roughly seven hundred feet away from us.  
Now _those_ ones, well. _They're_ real. Until I kill them.  
  
Six against two. Not very good odds at all, though we've survived worse. Many times. As soon as I think that, they begin to move.  
  
Get your rifle ready, soldier.  
  
I'm doing so even before Guy speaks his half-reminder and half-order out loud. If I were a rookie I'd have asked if it was still possible for us to hide and buy some more time, or whether we could approach first and go in for the kill. But I'm not, so I don't. This isn't like the old times, when sneaking up on your enemy was actually a viable option; we battle with technology incarnate. If we've spotted them, they've already spotted us. At that point, it's just a waiting game. The best option for us is to simply hold our ground and support each other. Luckily, the desert is wide and open, with nowhere to hide for either us or them.  
  
We gonna die, you think?  
Oh probably, he says just as casually, before he gives me a sunny grin. Just like all the other times we should have died, eh, comrade?  
Just like it. Best of luck to us.  
Roger that. Let's meet again in hell, should we go.  
  
We have this conversation before every encounter. We've always come out of it okay. Works like a charm, accepting your death.  
  
I might talk more about that later, but for now, I need to survive. Rifle at the ready, I inhale - hold for five seconds - and exhale, repeating the motion twice over, watching the blips crawl steadily closer to us. They might speed up soon, they must know that we're standing still and on the defensive; I am calm and Guy is calm and I'm actually fairly sure we're going to get through this without a scratch, though I shan't be quoted on that.  
  
Put the scanner away, he says. I see them now.  
  
We stopped being resentful a long time ago. Only tranquil, ruthless efficiency remains. We're saving the murderous rampages for when the other one's gone, and when no one will be around to see our tears. It's not that we don't get angry or that our buttons are hard to push in daily life; just that, you know, when there's somebody gracious enough to put up with you all the time, the least you can do for them is to act like a gentleman.  
  
We've got bullets to save anyway. We've got to conserve everything we can. Rampages are not very cost-effective.  
It doesn't matter as a whole if we kill them, there will be more later. Why put so much importance into this one encounter?  
  
There I can see them, the six.  
None of them look like the _originals_. Three are vaguely humanoid and three are quadruped, ambling their way to us. Guy winces beside me; he hates the look of the quadruped models, something about how they move and stumble about without losing balance unnerves him greatly. They're running as fast as they can but it's still not fast enough, or at least it seems to me that way, the sand flowing behind them as they spread out to close around us and it is oddly beautiful.  
  
Inhale. Hold.  
I see the sky. It is blue, reflected against Guy's helmet.  
The desert falls quiet. The place of death.  
  
_Fire!_  
  
Our rifles kick back in our hands, we _four_ brothers in arms, and the world fills with bright noise.  
  
Exhale.  
  
Guy gets the first kill, and easily. A couple of his shots bounce off the metallic carapace at first, but then he gets it right where the robot's optics are, cracking the glass and cutting off the glow between them. A further shot penetrates deep, tearing its way through the middle, through actuators and pistons before exiting through the robot's back. This is similar to what I've done to the robot closest to me; I used to treat encounters like this as a competition, then I stopped being an idiot. Now I just make observations like those instead.  
  
Inhale. Hold.  
  
It perseveres in clawing its way towards me, even with a gaping hole through its chest. Another shot, combined with a kick as I shove it out of the way, does the job and it finally goes down. Technically I didn't destroy it beyond repair, judging by how it's flailing in a pool of its own oil, but it doesn't look like it has enough energy to get up again - leave it be and it will shut down soon.  
Exhale. That's two.  
  
Breathe, Thomas. _Breathe_. With the stench of smoke behind me I glance back and see what my partner is missing.  
Guy! Nine o'clock!  
What?! What did you say?  
Over there! To your right!  
Shit! He curses, whirls around and just manages to get a shot in before the runner lunges at him. It stumbles back, winded, a chunk of its torso falling to the ground; that one moment of hesitation is enough for Guy to maintain fire and eventually to put it down altogether. Three. He's shouting something else but I can't hear him over the gunfire and by this time I'm shooting in the opposite direction as well, anyway, and in this moment the only communication we can manage (and _need_ ) is the strictly-visual.  
  
It's getting harder to see. I inhale at the wrong time and get a lungful of dust; even through it I can see the glint of metal ahead of me, getting closer, and I fire a single shot to deter it from coming near me while I cough.  
I am fortunate, it seems, it's a headshot. There's a bizarre and romantic perception amongst even those in the ranks that headshots are _elegant_ , a perfect see-through (if somewhat bloody) hole right through the cranium. Nothing is further from the truth, and the same goes for robots, too; it doesn't go down immediately, rather flailing off-path before dragging its limbs to the ground, twitching with sparks flying out of where it was shot before it goes still. Fluid leaks out and traces a long path down what's left of its face and it looks like tears. Four.  
  
Thunder ringing in my ears.  
  
A searing sensation runs down my arm. My heart's near pounding out of my chest as I glance at it, and even though it's not what I feared (claws/the embrace of a bullet/an impromptu amputation) it's enough to make me hesitate. If I were alone that one second would have been enough to doom me; but my partner stepping in, the quirk of his index on the trigger ripping the automaton apart, ensures that I'll live to breathe and suffer another day.  
Five. Guy and I, we are judgement.  
  
A simple world filled with not-so-simple noise. The desert floor stained black.  
I glance at my shoulder. Merely a graze - not even that, really, I'm not bleeding. Not any more, at least. But the uniform is nevertheless parted in a small thin gash down my arm, tracing the path the claws took, and my skin flashes too pale beneath it and that makes me think of Guy and _his_ arm, as random as that sounds. It isn't, though, not really. Where's the other one gone, I shout. He shakes his head distractedly; he can't see it, either.  
  
Guy tried to kill himself once. He still has the scar to show for it: one unashamedly bold, white line across his left wrist, so straight it looks practically surgical. It's hidden under clothing during daytime, or a watch if he's wearing short sleeves, but during long warm nights spent in those bases, the wink of that cut is what sends me off to bed every night and greets me every morning. Across his palm lies a fainter, but longer and more jagged scar; that's from when he gripped his pocketknife by the blade, frustrated, upon waking up alive with only empty pill bottles, sheets so crusted with blood as to have stuck to his arm, and a painful, scabbed wound to show for all of that trouble. I didn't even need to ask why he did it. He saw me stare at it at some point, maybe two months into us knowing each other, and all he did was to shrug and smile, and say: _Well, it just seemed like a good idea at the time._  
  
And that's the end of it, I guess. _It just seemed like a good idea at the time._ It was the anniversary of his fifth year in the army, and by all definitions, he'd been having a fairly successful day. Woke up to gifts and pats on the back from his comrades (this was before people were afraid of him - he was on his third or fourth partner, I don't remember), he got promoted that day, his service well-acknowledged and congratulated. Nobody in his unit died. Indeed, nobody in the entire area died that day. Not a single robot was spotted. Guy enjoyed a nice meal, a couple of drinks - a game of pool, too, if I remember correctly - in the evening. Then he went back to his quarters, cut his own hair (short back and sides, #2 guard, 2/8 inch hair left on the scalp), shaved his face, rinsed out the sink, downed a bottle of painkillers, washed it down with cognac, cut his wrist open, wrapped himself up in a spare sheet and laid down on the tiled floor to die. What he believed would be his last thoughts were: wondering whether he ought to have gotten into the bathtub instead, and the recognition that if he succeeded, well, he wouldn't need to shave himself ever again.  
  
At the time he'd found that quite a cheery thought, he told me, and laughed. I remember that it rang hollow.  
  
It'd been a long time coming. Guy wasn't actively seeking death during daily life, but he knew that one day it'd feel _right_ to end it all.  
He chose the right day. He did everything right. It just didn't work, is all. He simply couldn't have predicted or prevented his survival. He was very disappointed when he woke up, and his feelings about suicide hadn't changed in the slightest, but after he was patched up he dutifully let himself heal and went about with his life because he knew that the _right time_ had passed him by. And here he is now, still waiting for that moment to come along.  
  
There are times when I look at him and wonder if he's planning another attempt. How he'll ensure that it'll be his last.  
And that scares me. Because despite hearing his tale, making myself well aware of the conditions he'd been in at the time, and knowing that Guy isn't planning and has never planned his death to revolve around anything but his own perceived failures and exhaustion, part of me is forever terrified of what _I'd_ do if he died. Whether if in the corner of his mind, somewhere, he's blaming _me_ for screwing up (I don't even know _what_ I'd have screwed up) or for holding him back. I personally am terribly glad that he failed, because I wouldn't have ever met him otherwise, but that's a sentiment I show through my actions and not my words. For one, that's a really fucking tactless thing to say to somebody who was trying to get out of a horrible situation and _is still deep in it_. I'm happy he's next to me, and I'm happy that he survived. I'm not happy that he went through a great deal of unnecessary suffering. There is a difference there, even if the _consequence_ \- that he lived - is the same. But none of that erases the thought within me that not only is all of this a very selfish way of considering Guy's feelings, it's also one that's inherently distrustful of him, and during the times I'm reminded of that I really have to wonder how I'm different from all of the other soldiers. I might not be, as much as I think. Maybe it's my own comfort with him, and my own arrogance, that makes me think that.  
  
Maybe I hurt him too, simply by existing, simply by interacting.  
  
Guy, I'm sorry.  
He glances at me from behind. The target we lost has come back into sight. Sorry?  
For slowing you down.  
  
The last one has just gotten up from the sand; it's stumbling about, directionless, a mere few feet away from me. It doesn't even seem to want to attack any more; that, or it simply cannot. I finish it off with a square shot that hits its visor, shatters the glass, and penetrates its already-leaking head. It falls to the ground, no longer able to maintain its balance, twitching stickily in the sand.  
  
Jesus. What a fucking mess. Not just the robot, all of us, our disheveled and shaken selves and all.  
  
What makes you say that? Guy whispers behind me, and even though his face is turned away and his voice is quiet I can hear every word. Pulse pounding in my ears, in this moment just as loud as the gunshots. I'm breathing heavily, in and out, surveying the carnage. That you're slowing me down?  
Shit, I don't know, I mumble, and even though that sounds stupid, it's the truth. Sometimes I just feel like the load. You know what you're doing, you're fast - you'd probably have completed this trek by now if I hadn't been here.  
  
Not only is _that_ part not the truth, it's also a shitty way to put it. Guy stops and turns to face me, eyebrows raised inquisitively; he's lost the tie around his hair and it whips lightly behind him in the wind, sand and grit tangling faintly in his locks, adding a dusty paleness to its sheen. He doesn't say anything. He just looks at me for a long time, so long that I have to wonder whether he's trying to restrain himself from kicking my ass, because the serenity in the rest of his expression doesn't match his eyes; a scary look, as silly as it might sound.  
  
But my fears are unrealized and unaddressed. He eventually smiles a little, the contours of his cheeks softening.  
We stay in our positions as we log the event and what just happened, then we continue on as if we hadn't just been near death, as if nothing had been said at all. I know that what I said is to be forgotten, and I'm glad he won't hold it against me; but what wouldn't I have given to have just kept my mouth shut in the first place. I'd say sorry, but I'm terrified that I'm just annoying the hell out of him, even though I know that he'd tell me first if that was the case. Besides, that phrase doesn't really work, now, does it? You can't take the hell out of anything. Not through fear, anger, love, hate, the salvation of a man who should have died and the death of three innocent soldiers who we're out to avenge.  
  
I touch over my lips. It feels rough, just slightly, around my mouth and face. By the time we reach the base I'll have to shave again.  
  
Guy asks me if I have a hair tie handy after a few minutes. I don't. He tells me not to worry about it and continues on, humming a cheery tune under his breath, the sweep of his long and tangled hair swaying lightly as he walks. I watch it, and am reminded again. I am really not reminded as often as I ought to be, because you can grow numb to anything, especially other people's troubles; this bothers me, but I don't think anywhere near as much as it would bother Guy. _He's_ the one who needs to live with it. His attempt might have failed, but something about that night carried on haunting him - or the pure physical trauma of it wrecked havoc on his body, we won't ever know - and ever since that incident, his face has remained just as smooth and soft as the day he last shaved it, years ago, suspended in that moment he desperately wanted to be his last. The fine locks of his hair keep growing, and they're remarkably quick about it, but he hasn't shaved since; he hasn't needed to, he never will, now.  
  
I suppose it wouldn't have made any difference in the end.  
Guy's still dying, he now merely lives his death in the present. Don't we all.  
  
\-----  
  
About myself I wish to say this. Maman used to cry often.  
She never cried out _loud_ , and she usually didn't let me or anyone else in the family see. But she made us all feel _conscious_ of it. When she stooped in a certain manner, or when she abruptly excused herself from the dinner table for a few minutes, or when she uncovered a loaf that was just about ready to bake and a few teardrops fell upon the dough - we all knew what it meant and what to do about it, which was, coincidentally, nothing.  
  
We used to treat that like it meant something sacred. That pretending it wasn't happening, giving her much-needed space, silence, and (what we thought was) understanding, was a gesture of love just as intense and as valid as consoling her in an embrace would have been. Conversations would pause and resume smoothly the moment she returned; the daily bread would be sliced into with much thanks and without a single complaint; all in the name of love.  
Now? I just feel gluten intolerant about love and everything it stands for. To this day I don't eat sourdough. I grew up with love swirling around me, never reaching into the depths of myself but surrounding me nevertheless, just like how we prided ourselves in being ready to comfort Maman than we ever actually went ahead and did it. Love was always there, but it was not mine to keep or lay claim to.  
  
A lot of things should have gone a certain way, and didn't. There was meant to be two of us, see. I had a twin brother.  
At least, I was _meant_ to have one. I never met him, because for some reason or another I was the only one who survived at birth. I never asked for the details but I was given them anyway at some point, maybe just to hammer it in how lucky I was to have been the victorious one and how I ought to live well enough to do two people proud. I wasn't aware that this had ever been a battle. But you carry on that metaphor far enough, and you can say something about how I was born to fight from the beginning, how fitting my occupation truly is.  
  
...  
  
'Thomas' was going to be our name. Our middle name, rather, either that or something grand and overly lofty like _Theophilius._  
  
I'm actually kind of glad that never happened. Nobody should have a lie like that for a name. I should know.  
My first name would have been something completely different. And whenever I think of that, I feel weird for hours on end; I have never been anything _other_ than a Thomas. I can't really conceive of a world where I wasn't Thomas. But it doesn't really matter what I can think of and what I can't, because my name doesn't mean _me._ My name means _twin_. My name means a potential long lost, never to return. I am the only Thomas Bangalter that I know of, and yet until the moment I left home, I never got to know myself because no one acknowledged me as a separate entity from the ghost of my brother.  
  
Maman wanted to have him called Eugène. Apparently they told her that he wasn't fit to be called anything and carried him away, and she fell asleep almost immediately afterwards; she woke up with only me to look at, and one empty outfit next to it, never to be worn or given away. Then when she had to consider what she would do with _me_ , she decided that she wasn't done with _my brother_ , and stuck his identity upon mine forever. He was a shadow over my every achievement and failure, a ghost that no one had known enough about to truly adore or understand, but his sainted self was always invoked whenever I didn't do as expected. Eugène wouldn't have walked around the house frowning; he wouldn't have left homework until the last minute; when Maman died, he would have stayed by her side and wept for her soul, and so on.  
  
I didn't do any of those things. I never cried for my mother. She died shortly before I was drafted into the army.  
A quiet death, if a difficult one; pneumonia. I sat by her bedside and said nothing to her, and the silence was mutual. She stroked over the back of my hand minutes before she passed away, mouth moving as if to say something, but never did.  
  
I didn't stick around after that. Part of me still wonders whether she ever perceived me as _myself_ on her deathbed.  
  
...  
  
She was never _my_ mother. She was _our_ mother, _Eugène's_ mother, the saintly-invisible Eugène.  
  
...  
  
Her hand. Frail in mine. Cold.  
  
...  
  
If we'd done things differently, would she have left us so early? In such a state?  
  
...  
  
That's why I like it here so much. I am the only Thomas Bangalter around here.  
  
No one in the military knows nor cares about the ghost of my twin. No one here tries to make sense of glorifying one who never even existed. When they refer to me as a _Thomas_ , they mean me and no one other than me. _I_ own my potential, my successes, and my failures. I don't talk about my childhood all too much, or the problems of it rather, and they don't ask. As for those who have been told the full story, well - and I suppose by that, I just mean Guy - there is ample sympathy and appreciation, both of which reassures me that I'm not being the unreasonable one here.  
  
We've set up our tent for the night.  
We can't _always_ put it up or even necessarily want to, the stars are so beautiful; it'll be cold tonight, though, and warmth is more important. I cup my hands and breathe into them after we're inside and well tucked into our sleeping gear, rubbing my palms together, and when Guy turns with flashlight in hand and smiles in my direction I know that his smile is meant for _me_ , and I feel no guilt in returning it.  
Here amidst danger, and no elsewhere, do I feel so complete. Being able to feel that way is worth my life.  
  
Goodnight, Thomas.  
Goodnight, Guy. Goodnight, _chéri._  
Haha. Fuck off, Thom.  
But he pulls me close and turns off the flashlight. We huddle for warmth. Another day has died, but I'm still alive as _myself._  
  
That is a very good thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My fics are getting later and later with time because my second year at uni is basically kicking my ass. I'm tired and exhausted all the time and barely have the energy to keep up on tumblr, let alone converse or plan out long pieces. Nevertheless I still have a powerful case of the creeping wordcount syndrome, and this chapter alone is 10000+ words long. I wouldn't be surprised if the next one was just as long, if not longer. 
> 
> I said last chapter that I wanted to focus on the human-human conflict rather than human-robot; but at the same time, I wasn't going to leave the latter out altogether. Robots and humans killing each other is something that keeps on being attempted, and won't go away. 
> 
> This story too, like many of my others, is becoming more a story about Guy; I'm not sure what to feel about that.  
> Rest assured that Thomas's rich inner life is being expanded upon, but Guy is the only 'Other' he sees for thousands of words at a time... it's hard depicting them in balance.
> 
> * The MRE menus are taken from ones currently available as of 2015.  
> * So are the hair guidelines re: the military.  
> * I keep returning to Thomas's name and the etymology of it, which leads to 'twin'. Several spins have been planned or put on that aspect of him, but I tried playing it completely straight this time.  
> * I named the brother 'Eugene' as a homage to Eugene O'Neill, the dramatist, whose troubled family relations and his own survivor's guilt as a child affected his masterpiece _Long Day's Journey Into Night_ greatly. Thomas's conflict is sort of like Edmund's, if you've read/seen the play.  
>  * There is a note of the Camusian in Thomas's attitude to his mother's death, I think, but I did not actually intend this.
> 
> Please leave a review if you liked it; I'd love constructive criticism on this one.


	3. θρηνῳδία

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are **trigger warnings** in this chapter for fairly graphic violence, including a particularly violent death.  
>  Please be cautious.

**Parabellum (Part Three) - ' _θρηνῳδία_ '  
**

\----------------------------

Another morning rises.

Good morning, Thomas. Good morning, Guy. It's time for the creed. This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will. My rifle and I know that what counts in war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know that it is the hits that count -

...

Is that it, though?

\-----

I should clarify. I _absolutely_ know that the hits are important, but the noise - or rather, the _sound_ \- is too. There was a test that they gave us during training: we were all blindfolded, lined up in a row, and told to identify where the ringing of a bell was coming from. I don't think I need to elaborate too much on how much of a disaster that was initially. There's something about not being able to see that reduces the best of us into our primal selves, helpless and struggling. Half of us went in the completely wrong direction, a few people fell over, some of us ended up walking in circles when the drill instructor began moving about with the bell - you get the idea. Once the training was over, he had us remove our blindfolds and stood in front, just silently staring at us for the longest time. There was no expression on his face at all, not even disappointment.

You sons of bitches haven't got a clue, he finally said. Imagine if that was gunfire or a machine. You'd all be feast for the crows.

I don't think any of us messed up after that.

...

I had no cause to see him around much once I was done with basic training - Guy became my partner, and anything pertaining to real survival situations, he took over as they unfolded - but now that I'm remembering, I actually kind of miss the bastard. He was as good a drill instructor as they come. I only mention because around three months after I joined Guy, he died. Cause was neither gunfire nor machine; he was a heavy smoker, and by the time he came to his senses and quit, it was too late. He was too far gone. Only thirty-five, if I remember correctly.   
So it goes. What was I talking about again?

...

There is no underestimating the role of sound in combat. You can watch your shots land however much you want, and it will never bring about the satisfaction/reassurance/wake-up call that you so desperately need, if you can't _hear_ what you're doing. For example, when you're standing in the middle of a desert and trying to shoot a few robots out of the way so that you can move on, like what Guy and I are doing right now, the sound of crumpling metal can be a very comforting one. If Guy (again, hypothetically speaking) collapsed beside me and started to scream, that would signal that either he's been shot and needs avenging, or I've accidentally shot him and need my ass kicked in retribution. You don't even need to look. Sound tells you everything you want to know so you can move on.

I've been lucky, really; I've been blessed with an acute sense of hearing, which to this day has not faded.   
The training I mentioned earlier. The moment the blindfold wrapped around my eyes, plunging me into darkness - where everyone else panicked, I felt only peace. For a single second the world around me seemed to fall silent, before starting back up again more vibrant and alive than ever. With nothing to distract my vision I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears, smell the dusty tang of the training ground as our boots kicked up the dirt, the trailing melody of that bell - and it was second nature to me to follow what was so sweet to hear.

Was that too trusting of me? Maybe. But it worked out for me then. It _still_ works, believe it or not.

Guy sings beautifully and often. From seven to ten years old, when he _first_ lived in Paris, he used to be a choirboy. It's funny, because he doesn't remember the actual experience of it very much - he even gave it up when his family left for England, and when he returned afterwards he didn't rejoin. But his love of singing, and the kind of music that he was exposed to, affected him all his life; it's been nearly two decades, but here he is, still fine-voiced as ever and ready to show it off at any moment. Even if that moment is mid-combat.

_For the Lord God omnipotent reigneth..._

Not that I don't appreciate it. Each gunshot and hurried footstep underscores his voice. It's easier for the soul to think of what we're doing as a performance.

It's not real. None of it is. Not really.

Guy's carrying a lot of his past with him, now that I think about it, even if he doesn't always talk about them. He carries more than enough for me to guess. I don't see it too often, because it's usually tucked away in his pack for safety, but there's a silver crucifix he received around the same time that he still sometimes wears around his neck. I've never been able to figure out _what_ occasions warrant him wearing it, but he's very protective of it, all the same.

_The kingdom of this world is become..._

He's not a loud singer, particularly, and he approaches _all_ singing like a prayer of sorts. I never get the impression that he's singing _to_ me, to himself, or even with any particular purpose to mind. But he gives me something infinitely more pleasant than gunshots to pay attention to, and I am grateful. It's just a shame about this lot. Coming across those robots and killing them is a bothersome, though necessary business - but from their perspective, it was likely _them_ who'd just been minding their own goddamned business when _we_ came along to disturb their path. And we're armed, let's not shy away from that. You see an armed intruder, your instinct is either to run far away or to neutralize the threat if you are able. They aren't too different from us, when you boil it down to just that - it's just a matter of which side wins this time, with no regard to what metaphysical meaning each win might have. Because there isn't any.

We are like ships passing in the night. Perhaps Guy and I will die during our next encounter. It just wasn't this one. The final robot stops, its long blank gaze looking directly at us and then past, before it crumples to the ground. There is an odd grace in how it falls, first to its knees then to the side, almost as if it were falling asleep.

No hard feelings.

Lower the gun. Then comes the inevitable mutual glance shared between the two of us, both tired and faintly glad that we have survived once more, before we check the scanner. Nobody but us for miles around, yet again. Only then can we sit down and take a breather before we return to our path - the necessary records made, and leaving behind us only the oil-stained carnage, our footsteps and Guy's voice, that sweet requiem to the earth:

_And he shall reign for ever, ever and ever!_

\-----

The base turned out to be empty. Whoever told us that was right, a few days ago, in the last one we were in.

We do a cursory search of the place, but even before we took the first step I think we knew that it was hopeless. For whatever reason, everyone has left - though probably recently, considering that the entire building is spotless. Too warm to be comfortable by day because all air conditioning was turned off, and there isn't much food left here, either. But there's plenty of water, both stored and running, and there's still electricity - though as others come by, all that'll run out, too. No note or sign as to if anyone is going to come back. We find the sleeping quarters (the doors are all unlocked), go inside the first room that we like to look of, and finally sit down for the first time in hours.

What do you think it means, Guy asks me, balancing his rifle on his lap.   
Do you think they all left to join the manhunt?   
Could have, I guess. Though honestly I don't even know if he'd be _alive_ by this point.  
I nod, and leave it there, because we know that that doesn't have to be the case. As I said before, there aren't many people left, and once a base is deemed unnecessary or too strenuous to keep running, the staff will leave to be relocated elsewhere; the base itself will be emptied out, slowly, and stand as a non-functional building afterwards. People will stop factoring that particular place into their routes, and it'll be forgotten. It's happened before, and it wouldn't be surprising if that was what happened here. Though at that point, I remember something important. Do you think our armour got here? I ask.  
I don't know. Let's check.

It was worth checking. They're both there and ready to go, and in what must _surely_ be good news, there are four others adjacent to them. All are fully charged. Maybe they're going to come back after all, Guy says, standing up and dusting his hands. Maybe they just left for a few days... and if not...

He shrugs and doesn't finish the sentence, but I can guess what comes next. _If not, at least we know that those other guys are coming to pick up their armour. They can't be far behind us, either._

_We aren't alone._

It's a fragile consolation, but it's one all the same. We leave the armour behind for now - we will _absolutely_ need them at full charge when we leave - and finally give ourselves time to relax and sort out our supplies. The canteens need filling first, and that part is done with ease. But like I said, food's running a bit short and we won't be able to stock up on extras here; we need to think of the ones who will come after us. After we leave the base we'll need to kick the rationing between us up a notch. Not ideal, but survivable. I've wondered out loud before why we don't get to have food caches spread around the Mojave, and the explanation I got was that refilling them and keeping them maintained just wasn't worth the time and manpower. Not enough people are around.

Like I said. It's the solitude that kills.

But that's also a part of why despite all the shortcomings, I have found comfort where I am. Guns kill. The desert is hot and brutal. Neither of the two ever pretend to serve any other purpose. And with every repeat of that realization I become humbled. These are the times when I get most reminded of the fact that we are indeed working in a desert, and that contrary to what we might think, Mother Nature doesn't _actually_ care about whether we live or die. Guy says that he's going to unpack and reorganize our things, as well as plan out what exactly we'd eat and when during our next trek. It's a task relevant to the two of us so I offer to join in right there and then; he laughs and says to not worry about it, and that I ought to get myself a nice shower while the sun's out and the water's guaranteed to be warm. Shouldn't you be the one to go first, then, your hair takes a while to dry, I ask him. We go back and forth like this for a while before eventually settling on a compromise: he goes and showers first while I begin the reorganization, and when I return from my trip he's finished off the task. (Teamwork!)

Did you ever find a tie for your hair?  
He points to the back of his head in lieu of an answer. He has. It's blue. Matches his eyes. As you said earlier, we ought to aim for three days in reaching the next base, he tells me. We've each got nine MREs - two a day, I think, that gives us a few spare.  
I nod. In line with what I had in mind, and nothing new, either; we've survived on slightly less before. (But I _really_ don't recommend it.) That makes sense, I say as I sit down on my bed. The mattress is firm, but not unpleasantly so. And we'll be able to go faster, providing nothing slows us down, so...  
 _Providing_ nothing slows us down. Let's just hope that we won't have to fight anybody.  
Amen to that, I answer, and that's the end of _that_ part of our discussion - at least, out loud. He comes over to my bed to sit beside me, still smelling faintly of an undefined citrus from the shower earlier. It's quite pleasant. You hungry?  
 _Non._ You?  
Not really. What do you want for breakfast?  
He grins and lies back with his hands behind his head. Cooking for _me_ , eh? I expect a feast.  
Heh, don't flatter yourself. Or my skills, for that matter. You know perfectly well that breakfast's just going to be whatever's left behind. I don't even know _what's_ left behind, except that it won't be much.  
Doesn't matter, at least I don't need to make it. I'd feel like an actual superior again.

But I see the laughter in his eyes, and feel the affection behind the small nudge he gives me; at the same time I can feel his unease and share in it, too. It's a valid worry, all of this - having to restrict ourselves even more in regard to food and water, for one thing. We came here with certain expectations, and being let down is just hard, no matter how rationally you thought through it. It's odd being in a base and not hearing the footsteps of other people, to have ended up just as alone as we'd be in a tent in the middle of the desert.

We set off tomorrow?  
Guy nods. He seems just as eager as I to move on; as safe as this place is, Guy and I won't miss it, being here. Eight or nine o'clock at the latest.  
Something tells me that we might not get anywhere near amount of sleep we need, once we're out there.  
All the more reason to rest now, he laughs, and goes back to his own bed. From the way he pulls the blankets aside and nestles himself in, contentedly folding his hands behind his head, it's up to me to turn out the light. I have no real reason to linger, but I still hesitate for what must be at least a few minutes, trying to untangle the mess of my thoughts. There's something I want to say in there, something that's important to me, but I'm not sure where it came from or whether now's the best time to say it. Neither of us are inclined to trust the supernatural or inexplicable knowledge over what we can already verify, but there's been this _feeling_ in me ever since I entered this base - some immediate basic instinct - that's warning me to be extra careful.

Careful about _what_ though, that I don't know.  
I don't really know how to describe it to Guy, either. Even if he sympathized, there would be nothing he could do or say to make me feel better. Best not to impose that upon him. Instead I focus on one of the by-products of that feeling that's risen in me as I speak up.

Guy.  
What's on your mind, Thom?  
Can I ask you to do something for me?  
Now, or later?  
Later. Much, much later, hopefully. I'm asking now because by morning it might have slipped my mind.  
This came up just now? He asks, and I nod. I can't guarantee that it won't slip my mind either, but let's hear it.  
If I die, will you kiss me?  
He blinks. But what's that going to be good _for?_ Not saying that I'm not going to do it, I'm just curious.  
We talk about dying far too often to find it morbid. I almost expected him to laugh it off like I was joking; I'm grateful that he didn't, so I don't retort back that you don't need to question the logic of harmless last requests. I don't mean on the mouth, I clarify (making a bit of a face as I say it), and he nods with eyebrows raised, waiting for me to continue. I meant _here_. Just once.  
... What, on your forehead?   
Mm-hmm.   
Well, all right.

I hesitate there a little. He knows something of my past, but I haven't talked about this part as much. But I might as well.  
Like how Maman used to, I tell him, every night. Before I grew up, went away and she died.

His expression changes, first from surprise, then to dismay, and finally to a sad, sweet understanding. He doesn't need to say anything. Knowing me well enough, he knows better than to offer pity, or - _words_ , really, they aren't fit for the kind of discourse we're having right now. It's a long time before he asks, quietly: She sing you lullabies as well?  
What, when she put me to bed? Yeah.  
If I can spare the time - I'll sing you to sleep too, if you want me to do that. Everyone needs someone to carry out the tiny wishes in their lives. To cry for them, too, when they're dead.

Now that's more like it. I can't help but smile a bit. He really _does_ know me.

What did she sing for you, do you remember?  
Um. _Au Clair de la Lune. Die Gedanken sind Frei. Alouette._  
What the Christ is _Alouette_ doing in that list. That's not a song to sing to a kid.  
Tell that to _generations_ of French children, who you somehow never had contact with while you were growing up. Besides, she _did_. So there.   
He raises an eyebrow, looking slightly stung but impressed. Fair enough, but if you die, that particular song won't be in my repertoire, regardless of your fondness for it. That's taking it a bit too far, don't you think?  
Holy shit. _Guy-Manuel._ There's an actual honest to god war going on around us, even if we don't get to see it most of the time. When we were children we grew up in it, even if back then the machine war was far away from France or the USA or wherever. Don't tell me that's right. And if you think about it, who _hasn't_ grown up without conflict? I remember more violent children's stories and songs than I can possibly count, because when you're that young you don't quite get _subtle_ storytelling conventions about who came off the best or worst at the end of the story. Kids understand death earlier than anybody gives them credit for, earlier than they understand torture or lifelong guilt or self-hatred, and also that sometimes it's the good guys suffer and die for no reason other than it makes a good story. What's a little song about plucking a lark compared to all of that?

He just smirks. I can see the faint white gleam of his teeth, all boyish-like, though the falling darkness.

You taking it or leaving it, soldier?  
Aye, I laugh and salute him before I turn out the light. He deserves that much. Aye, I'll take it, sir.

\-----

Guy sleeps very deeply. I can't even hear him breathe most of the time.

I mentioned once before that he doesn't have a set time when he sleeps. Normally it's fine, because we must sleep and wake up at the same time whilst out there in the desert. But sometimes I end up waking up in the middle of the night for some ungodly reason and I can't predict when he's going to want to wake up, and what happens _then_ is that I end up staring at him all night, because I have a profound fear that if I look away or leave the room for even a single minute he will stop breathing and die.

That's not too far from what Maman did, and he _did_ once almost die while sleeping. You can't blame me for being afraid.

I, however, will accept that it is not a logical fear. That's why I've said nothing about it to Guy. Whenever those times come, I just quietly accept that I'm going to be tired during the day to follow, and withdraw to a comfortable spot where I can watch Guy sleep. It's just as well that I usually have those moments when we're not on the move; being sluggish and off my guard in the middle of a desert trek is less than ideal. Sometimes my eyes drift shut, but they have no genuine exhaustion behind them, and they always open again to face Guy and our dull surroundings.

Close my eyes. Open them. The scar on his wrist winks at me. I think about death and how inconvenient it would be.

But to a certain extent I have resigned myself to death this year, every year.

At least I know that I will be in good hands should I die here. I don't believe in life after death; I'll go to blissful nothing, I suppose, but the thought that Guy will take care of me and give me a last rite of sorts is comforting in its own way. I don't want him to be sad - but at the same time I think he's right that everyone needs someone to cry for them when they're dead. I know I would, if the positions were reversed. It's just what living, and the assertion of having lived, is all about.

Close my eyes. Open them again, this time looking away from his wrist.

No crucifix around his neck tonight. A bit of a shame, it'd have been something bright to focus on.

That crucifix raises so many questions for me. As I said, I don't know whether Guy wears it for a reason or according only to his whims. I don't know whether there's a story behind it, though I think that there must be one, considering how protective he is of it. (Or maybe the time he held onto it gave it sentimental value?) Aside from that, it was part of what got us talking about our childhoods, and eventually about the difficult topic of personal religions. You just know that you're close to someone, when you can discuss this sensibly with them.

He doesn't really believe and neither do I. The only difference between us is that I've _never_ believed, while he _used_ to. And beliefs from that time still inform his thinking, whether in the expected ways or not, like the first time I felt comfortable bringing up the topic with him. Halfway through describing his religious background and his childhood at Montparnasse he suddenly paused, stared at me intensely, and said in the most casual tone: you know, there was a time when you and I'd have warred because of what you're asking.

Doubtless it was a thing said to unsettle me for a few seconds. I'm of Jewish origin; back then I had mentioned this to him once as part of an introduction, _very_ early into our acquaintance. I hadn't spoken of it since then and he hadn't ever asked, so when he said this it did throw me off a little, because I hadn't expected him to remember. But I like to think that I regained my composure quickly enough.  
What, like there still _isn't_ persecution between both parties, I said, and he chuckled. We'd been talking in the dusk, away from the rest of our unit and the five tents arranged in a circle; he ashed his cigarette and inhaled for the penultimate time, the cigarette cherry glowing, and its light glanced pink against his neck. Besides, I don't practice. No one in my family did as far as I know.   
And your _lycée_ didn't put any effort into religious education, you said.  
None. I don't think it'd have been different anywhere else, though, this isn't a century ago.  
I hear you. I'm not blaming you, my _lycée_ was exactly the same. The good old _laïcité._  
Mm. You'd think by preventing religious dogma they mean that they want to raise awareness of many _other_ beliefs and ways of thought, but no. Not even a chance of getting to know yourself.   
He looked sidelong at me at that. Might that be why you haven't talked about yourself all that much?   
Hell, no. I knew all too well who I am. But you said it yourself, it's not the kind of thing you mention to a heavily armed Christian.

He didn't answer that one because he was too busy laughing. Threw his head back and laughed for over a minute. You got me good, he paused long enough to tell me that much, and went straight back to it.

...

Check the time. Half past midnight. I think back to the conversation we had just before bed.

We talk about our last requests often, in small bits of detail, sometimes changing our minds on how we want things done. Apart from the kiss to the forehead, Guy also knows that I'd like to be buried after death if possible, that I don't protest a sky burial either, that he can take my rations and whatever belongings that he would like from my pack (I have very few mementos, and I don't see the point in holding onto them after I'm dead), and that I'd like a marker of some sort. Doesn't need to be permanent or all that meaningful, but I'd want it to be something he would recognize and remember if he ever saw it again. This is directly in contrast to _his_ wishes; he wants no trace of him left behind, and while that saddens me a little, I can entirely see where he's coming from. About the only thing we agree on is the sky burial, I guess, and that's a last resort for when we can't do anything else for each other.

And no prayers. We were very direct about that. All prayer would achieve is taking up precious time.

I remember being surprised when _he_ told me that.

What, Guy, you don't pray at all?  
I do. But I can't say I'm very consistent about it. Besides, I'm going to be beyond help when I'm dead, I can't let people waste time praying for me.   
Well, what else would you want? What if you die first and I've got to bury you somewhere, I should at least give you whatever rite you'd like, even if it's not prayer. I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least do that.  
Chrissakes. _Thomas._ Don't bury me, just set me on a bonfire and go on your way. Throw me in the sea, if we're near there, or leave me to the vultures or something, have me be _useful_. If I'm going to be food for anything I'd rather not it be the worms, all right? Fuck that up and I'll haunt you for the rest of your short and miserable life, I swear to Jesus.  
Tell me the things you want and believe in, then, so I _don't_ fuck it up.  
Crazy, he said again, shaking his head, but he was smiling.

And yes, he kept his word. As we talked we tried to figure out what subconscious beliefs informed our thinking, not just regarding death or religion, and here we are now. It's not so much about God when he talks about religion, either, rather _morality_ , like it ought to be. Morality's the one thing everyone has a broad grasp on and hardly anyone thinks about, even though pointing this out or disregarding it altogether is considered to be offensive. Fascinating subject. The two of us are just humble soldiers and it's unlikely we'll reach any consensus on it that hasn't been reached before, but if nothing else, talking about this with Guy helps me understand him. I welcome anything that helps me understand the kind of person Guy is, especially if they're related to things that he hasn't talked about, or something that I haven't yet experienced to the intensity that he did.

Like right now, that's a great example. We don't have much food, but that's just between the two of us; hardly a full-on crisis. But the very first year Guy was in the military, food ran scarce in the entire region where he was stationed at. That's where he learnt a few of the harder lessons of morality.

This was before I was sent to the USA, as you might have guessed, he said, when we had. We were in Poitiers, and I arrived at the tail end of the food shortage, but by that I still mean over a month of watching how it all played out. The roads out of the commune had been destroyed two months prior and they were rebuilding, but this made delivering supplies very difficult, you know? There were air-dropped supplies, but they're more costly to operate, and you just can't come around as often as you could with a supply truck. So everyone ended up fighting everyone for their share, pretty much. After we relocated to Picardy things were much better, not that I think Picardy is forgiven the sin of being Picardy just because food was plentiful there. But I no longer had to watch friends and family turning on each other, or hear reports of our own soldiers beating up civilians and actually killing whoever they'd been fighting or-   
...  Actually killing? As opposed to what exactly, _almost_ killing?  
Well, damn, Thom. It was a code of honour. Before the food shortage hit, even your enemies, you didn't just _leave_ them with no food, water, or help nearby if you were going to leave them alive. People fighting other people and taking whatever they had afterwards has always been a thing, but in this army at least, whoever lost still generally had _something_ left behind for them. Even it was just a single ration or a bottle of water. After all, even amidst all the disagreements, this is a war against _machines_ and humans - if possible, we ought not to be fighting each other, not even enemy soldiers. And you most certainly don't go around beating up civilians. You respect your fellow human beings however you can. But the shortage ruined all that. I guess the logic was that if they were dead, they couldn't want for anything anymore, but to use that as an excuse to murder and steal... just no. Frankly speaking.  
Have you seen it happen anywhere else?  
You drive people to those extremes and it's inevitable. But I never had to rob _anybody_ for their food even then, and I really hope I won't ever have to.

At that point he stopped and gazed at me for a long time.

Do you think it's weird, he asked, that I'm proud of that?

...

I wouldn't have had a good response to this at _any_ point, I think. But an answer he was waiting for, so I had to give him one.

It isn't weird, Guy. Definitely not where we are.

He smiled at that. Not out of relief, though, particularly. _Recognition._

I don't know, I feel like the moral code itself is straightforward, he said. It's the _situation_ that changes. It's the situation people can often do nothing about. I know what good morals are meant to be. But you think people in the middle of a siege, or in a battle, or who're starving to death in a desert care about morality? I doubt it. You can't help but disregard good morals when your situation, your entire world, is in shambles. And if you somehow manage to hold onto them, you probably deserve some praise just for that. That's why I claim to be proud, as arrogant as that sounds. Sometimes practicing common-sense ethics is hard, and not something that any decent human being can do. You can be perfectly decent and still do awful things, I reckon. How can you live in hell while trying to be an angel? That's not being noble. That's _suicide_.

Then he stood up and lit a cigarette, first for me and then for himself. I remember that it wasn't a brand that I'd smoked before, though the exact name of the brand slips my mind, and that the smoke tasted sweet on my tongue. From this point onwards it's _that_ I remember, and his voice, far more than anything I might have said.

_How_ you go about trying to do the good thing doesn't always work either. You can't leave a defeated opponent with only a single ration, not here. You don't survive for very long in the desert with just that on you. It's cruel mercy at most, I'd say it was downright _sadistic._

Inhale. Exhale. Then the smoke got in his eyes and he waved it away, frowning, before resuming talking to himself.

But how _do_ you deal with battles, then? You can't _not_ fight in the desert. Sure you can try to avoid battles, but you don't get away with it forever, not when everyone's out to get you. It wouldn't be a war otherwise. Can't leave them with what they've got, just in case they come after you again, but can't leave them with just the one thing to prolong the torture. Can't avoid them. What's a man to do?

Another pause. I might have commented on something, but it went ignored. It wasn't an answer to Guy's question anyway.  
Oh no. The actual answer he gave was chilling to the bone.

Maybe it's for the best that you just kill them, he said, and twisted the end of his cigarette against a wall. Providing that you never initiated the fight. They shouldn't have attacked you in the first place. That's what they get for provoking violence, it's only justice.

Then he laughed and that disturbed me so much that I had to make him stop. Looking back on it, he didn't sound even the slightest bit happy about the conclusion he'd reached - what I'm saying is that it wasn't a _mean_ laugh, rather a hollow one - but I doubt you can blame me for reacting like that. You say the moral code is straightforward, I asked, trying to keep my voice from trembling, but you also know it varies. Do you think we're somewhere that actively promotes the right one?

Guy laughed again then. It was more bitter than it was chilling, and at that time it took the edge off the conversation.  
I'm not so sure that I was right to feel that way, though, nowadays.

That, Thomas, he said, is a _very good question._

\-----

The sun throws a fierce glare upon my face at six thirty-three in the morning, jolting me back into the world of the real. I dozed off during the night, though I can't have slept for more than three or four hours; the awakening is so rude, however, that by the time I've gained my bearings and stood up I'm fully alert. I expected to be a little cramped from leaning against the wall all night, but there's none of that either.

Everything is still the same. The windows aren't designed to open, but I can look outside of them fine all the same - no sign that anyone's outside, or that anyone came by while we were sleeping. I turn to look back at Guy's bed and find it completely empty.

Guy?

No response. But his backpack, rifle and clothes are still strewn on the floor; alarmed, I lean out into the hallway and call for him again. Guy? Where are you?

Nothing, again. Panic surges within me and I hurry out of the room, calling his name. I thought that feeling of unease would have dissipated during the night, but no such luck. The hallway is dark and empty and oddly cold and I'm about to go back and arm myself ( _just in case_ ) before his voice rings out behind me: I'm here, Thom, are you okay?  
I spin around. His head is peeking out from the doorway of the kitchen - he's dressed already, hair tied up, his hands wet with soapsuds. I can hear the tap running, and the cooling-down buzz of the oven somewhere in the kitchen. And then there's me, wild-eyed and breathing hard in a panic, having only been seconds away from running back to fetch my gun before I was interrupted.

Um.

What're you doing so early up? I manage to ask.  
Early? _Non_ , I'd say now's about the right time to get up, Guy laughs, and gestures vaguely towards me with his wet hands. I was going to wake you up once I'd finished. I made breakfast, by the way.  
... Oh.  
I drop my guard and follow him into the kitchen. Seeing the plates set out gives me an odd feeling, mixed pleasure and an intense guilt. You didn't need to, Guy, I was serious about making it today...  
Hey, I woke up first and I was hungry, it was just the right thing to do. You can cook me a feast in the next base to compensate, if you insist. I'll expect you to bring it to me while I'm in bed and everything.  
Oh fuck off, I tell him, though I'm grinning. But I'll make it up to you. I promise.  
That's all I needed to hear. It was nice, actually, just watching the sun rise while I made food, and - _prepared._  
Prepared what?

He just winks and points to the table where breakfast is set out, before going back to the washing up. I leave the question be for now, and sit down. MRE, as I expected, but plated and genuinely hot, in a _lasting_ kind of way. A ration heater just isn't the same. It's brisket for the two of us with garlic mashed potatoes; a favourite of mine. I sprinkle some butter granules onto the latter and watch them dissolve, and even though its scent is only a faint suggestion of the real deal, something about sitting here with the sunlight gleaming in and a hot meal in front of me makes me relax a little. It won't last, but it's enough.

Guy sets a coffee down in front of me. (Irish Cream cappuccino.) He then comes to sit next to me, pulling his own mug of coffee close. He's sprinkled some pepper on his mashed potatoes, not liking the granules but still wanting extra flavour on them. He smells nice, no longer of citrus but of a richer, warmer, buttery sweetness; when he sees me looking at him he smiles back, takes up his cutlery, and begins eating in silence.

I follow. This is nice. This is precious. _This_ , I'd fight to keep.

You can't eliminate evil. Of that I'm sure. But perhaps you can keep it at bay.

\-----

That peace of mind doesn't last very long. But I suppose that's just the nature of peace.

We set out into the desert again after breakfast, armour on, following our designated path and without making much conversation throughout. No time to chat. Or at least, that's what I tell myself. I just don't feel very much like conversation, is all. I can't feel the sand beneath my feet as easily, not beneath the armour strapped to my body; this has always felt rather unreal to me, and most of the time I've been able to dismiss it to the back of my mind.

Today it's different. Not even an hour in, I unshoulder my rifle and quietly hold it in my hands.   
Guy notices and asks me what I'm doing that for.

I'm not sure, I confess. I have a very bad feeling.   
Was it from a dream you had?  
No. It's... what it is. It's a bad feeling. I don't know how to explain it, I want to be prepared, is all.  
You trigger-happy, then, are you?  
I hide my frown as he laughs, and don't answer save for a shrug. He doesn't seem to mind, though, walking on ahead as bright and alert as ever. I would have an easier time responding if he were ever lackadaisical, but he isn't even that, he always takes things seriously enough. He _would_ be worrying if he'd perceived anything to worry about. This would have made me relieved before, but today it's just stressing me out because I feel like I'm being unfairly paranoid. This continues on for hours until the sun is high and midday settles in like a dazed dream.

I mean to depict that quite literally, by the way. The coast is clear as far as we can see, but the heat haze is particularly bad today. Everything is blurred. I gaze ahead into the sand and it looks like a thin layer of water's been spilt on it, spreading slow and almost tranquil. That reminds me of our first time seeing rain in the Mojave, when we were trekking through the salt flats; a brief hard rain like a thunderstorm assaulted our backs as we walked, but within minutes it had all cleared away, leaving only a brilliant, still shimmer that floated over the salt-crusted ground, for a few minutes forming a never-ending mirror beneath our feet and over the horizon. _That_ was a beautiful sight. This? Neither romantic nor desirable. All it's doing is messing with me.

Something rustles in the distance behind me. I spin around, rifle raised.

Nothing but sloping sands and yucca trees here and there.

This can't go on.

You okay there?  
Huh?  
Guy's looking into my face with a concerned expression, and I feel my cheeks burn. You've been looking really _bothered_ all morning. Is something the matter?  
Did you hear that?  
He shakes his head. Heard nothing but you and I, he says.  
I definitely heard something. It wasn't the wind. I'm-

I get as far as that before shaking my head, instead reaching up to my jacket and switching on the camera in my breast pocket. Just in case, I tell him. Then I look away - that heat in my face still not gone - half expecting Guy to make fun of me, despite really knowing better about the kind of person he is. But he doesn't. His gaze searches over my form for a second, then he beckons me close, pointing towards where there is some shade beneath a tree. Can't hurt to rest for a while, he says, and smiles so gently that the worries almost melt away from my mind. That's all he says, too. Nothing about calming me down or a comment on how hot the weather is, as if there was something acutely wrong with me. I appreciate that.

The breeze swirls my hair. I guess that's a good feeling. I get one good feeling.

Thank you, Guy, I say as I follow. And I'm sorry for this.  
No need to be sorry. What's wrong with being alert, eh? Lunchtime too, what the hell, let's relax for a while.   
Yeah, that'd be-

Something whistles past Guy's ear, less than an inch away from his helmet, before pitting itself firmly into the tree trunk.  
We stare at it. The silver-bodied bullet winks in the sunlight as if to taunt us.

...

What was that about being trigger-happy?

Honestly speaking, I'm not sure what order those events come in at this moment. All morning I've been anxious and stressed to hell and back, only reluctantly keeping my rifle pointed down, fingers trembling as they search for that familiar grip. The moment I saw the bullet whistle past Guy's helmet, all that stress found its release. I know that I immediately turn around and open fire in that direction with neither aim nor grace; I know that I hear a scream and _somebody_ topples over in the distance; I know that Guy's darting past me, maybe at the exact same time as that someone fell over, kicking up sand haphazardly in all directions; I know that someone is shouting something and that it's not me; I know that I run after him. Yes, that must be the logical order, but it _feels_ instantaneous. No more shots are fired in our direction so I know that I've gotten them good, though I'm not sure if I _killed_ them outright, so I pick up my pace with my breath hot in my lungs.

But Guy is quicker. Guy is also _furious_. He is angrier than I have ever seen him in the past three years.  
The sandy breeze makes my eyes sting, but what _actually_ makes me wince and close them is his voice, tearing raw from the very depths of his soul, screaming: _What do you think you're doing?!_

The person who I've shot is making a valiant attempt to run away, admittedly, but he's limping. He manages two steps before falling over in the sand, and I see that he's left blood trails in the sand - a shot in the leg. When Guy gets to him first he stops, panting hard and staring down at the man - before I can ask him who it is or to wait until I can get there, his face twists in further disgust, and he brings his foot down hard on the bleeding wound. Aided by the armour's weight, every hit registers as harder than the norm; ideally it's not something to inflict on any human being, especially someone who's lying injured and without protection in the middle of a desert. But that thought leaves me not even a second later as I finally reach them. With a sinking horror I recognize the mess of a human being beneath Guy's fist, moments before it makes contact with their right shoulder. The crack of bone and cartilage shattering rings through the air, clearer than I ever remember our shots being - and Pedro screams out loud.

You know what. Go ahead and take back the good feeling now. It's long since gone, I'm just making it official.

No, I didn't kill him, and neither did Guy. Practically speaking that's a good thing, though now that I can see him, I'm sure as hell not happy about it. But Guy's nearly about to punch his face in, and that would be inconvenient, so I hold him back. I can't say that I try very hard, though. I mean, shit. He tried to kill us first. He tried to kill _Guy._  
A part of me feels perverse satisfaction on seeing the blood running down the side of Pedro's face.

This was worth the anxiety.

Pedro isn't as struggling as much as he's _crying_. It's not because I shot him in the leg, or because Guy broke his shoulder, either. This is a defeated kind of crying, the kind that bursts out of you when you have truly lost everything and have nothing left to live for, fueled in equal parts self-hatred, guilt, sadness, anger - and _fear._ Through this torrent of tears he's mumbling something, though we can't initially make out what he's trying to say. Guy tells him to _speak up, you son of a bitch_ , in just as many words, and when that doesn't work he kicks him sharply on the side.   
Ow, fuck, Pedro cries out, but gets straight back to it, though more audibly this time. Nadege.   
What?  
You heard me, he keeps on sobbing. Nadege. I just wanted her back. I just wanted to go back.   
Who the hell is Nadege? I ask out loud to no one in particular. Guy tilts his head slightly to indicate that he doesn't know, either. Clearly not someone they talked about during that night, or else he was too drunk to remember anything Pedro told him. Both are equally unhelpful options.   
Did it all wrong, Pedro chokes out, before he blearily looks around and his gaze focuses on us. Upon meeting our eyes, he suddenly becomes very still, peaceful even, quietening down and staring back at us for a very long time. Save for the pink blotches on his cheeks and his anguished face (sticky with tears, though the sandy breeze covers it up), you wouldn't suspect that he'd ever cried at all. He licks his lips - they're very dry and cracked - and pauses multiple times, always at the verge of seemingly trying to tell us something very important, before he finally asks:

How's the manhunt going for you two?

Guy loses it again. Understandably so.

Do you think this is a motherfucking _joke?_ He shouts, almost throwing himself down to snatch Pedro up by his shirt; I hold him back again, purely out of the concern that he might have something up his sleeve. Whether that's literal or not. Either way, I'm not letting him hurt Guy, even if it comes at the expense of him getting a well-deserved swing at Pedro. I don't know if it slipped your mind or not, but is that literally all you've got to say after, oh, I don't know, _trying to fucking murder us?_ What on earth is wrong with you?  
That guy, whoever he was, he seemed so _generic_ , Pedro carries on with a shake of his head, talking right over him. His fist closes over a handful of dirt, sand spilling out the sides as he trembles with effort. Brown hair and blue eyes? Common as all hell. Private First Class? Common as all hell, and if you got rid of the right identification you could just slap on a uniform and call the body whatever. And what about the scar he apparently has, have either of you actually seen what it's meant to _look_ like? Whether it's healed, whether it's fresh - where exactly it is?

Guy flinches. Out of the corner of my eye I see him nervously clenching his left hand.

So what, you thought killing Guy and faking the suspect's body was going to get you anywhere?   
You don't understand, Pedro shakes his head. There probably actually _is_ a guy. He probably actually _did_ murder somebody, or several. What I'm saying is that the higher-ups don't actually care about the finer details of who that guy is exactly, or even how all of us on the manhunt are faring, just as long as he ended up dead. They're just playing it up like it's a complete emergency, but really, maybe he's already _dead_ and no one's told us yet-  
Pedro, that's ridiculous. What would that even achieve, beyond the guy ending up dead. Which is what we expect, anyway.  
Have you actually met the other guys on the manhunt? Ever compared notes?  
What do you mean, I...

Come to think of it, we actually haven't.   
We get occasional updates regarding how the other teams are doing, and at almost every base we visited so far to there's been _someone_ who recognized our mission. But we haven't been on it for a long time, not even two weeks total; it only feels that way because no one expected that soldier to evade capture for this long. And we're so used to spending days on end without seeing a single soul, anyway. We'd have _eventually_ noticed and thought it odd that we met no one else on the same mission, but -

...  
...

\- not as quickly as Pedro did, evidently.

He picks up on the hesitation pretty fast. Taking only the time to inhale and exhale an agonized breath, he sinks his head back into the sand and carries on talking. I have, he says, because _I_ wasn't part of it. As I stayed in that base I saw those guys come by, one by one before leaving again, never encountering each other. Every one of them I asked the same question to, whether they'd met anyone else on their mission. You remember, right? When I asked you that night whether you'd seen anything out there, besides the robots? Every single one of them said no. So I deduced that you guys are patrolling in a circle, pretty much, with maybe a few groups walking the diameter. No doubt you're going to get the guy, if it's as tightly organized as that. But do you think you're the only two-person team on the job? They all are. I've even met someone who was going at it alone because the machines had gotten his partner a day before. Do you know what they told him? That he had to go on by himself _anyway_. The desert is a dangerous place. Like, well, no shit, Pedro, you might say, but everyone knows that. It's important that you know that everyone knows that, because that's what makes the arrangements you're under even more suspicious. I don't know, seems like a solid way of keeping you out of the loop, making it difficult for you to meet others and realize that they're dying out there for the sake of this one guy, and that no one cares. I'm sure they don't. Hell, maybe they all secretly want you to fail because they don't want to invest any more pay or benefits on you, or something.

I look at him. Meet his eyes dead on. Then I shake my head, slowly at first, to get my point across.   
Guy, meanwhile, just buries his face in his hand. Oh my God. Oh. Jesus. No. You're fucking _insane_ , that's what you are.

Pedro lets out a wild sobbing laugh.

I can see that this doesn't help Guy's opinion of him in the slightest.

Believe that if you want. I made my case. At the end of the day, this was about _me_ , because _I_ wanted to get out. At least they actually seem to think you guys are useful, and you haven't left anybody waiting back home. Good. I hope they never stop thinking of you that way, or you really _will_ end up crazy and your heads wanted, regardless of whether you've actually done anything or not.

Silence. Guy seems to be beyond words, merely staring at Pedro with an indeterminable look, like he's heavily torn between shooting him in the face or helping him to leave the desert and get to a medic, as he's so obviously disturbed. As for me, I can't see myself and neither of them are looking at me anyway; but I assume my expression is just as conflicted as his. Pedro sighs and stares blankly ahead into the sky, tears streaming down his face.

I was just playing by their own dirty rules.

There's a bird singing in the distance. I wish it would stop. Nothing has the right to sound merry in a situation like this.

It's exactly what I told you that night: enough to drive a man half mad. What are you to do when you find out you're basically disposable and the letters from home stop coming? You've got to go back and check if they're alive, right? Failing that, you need to get out _somehow_ , yeah? Nobody deserves to go on like this. I wouldn't wish this upon an honest to God _murderer_. Whoever that guy on the run might be, I reckon his running away at least was a good idea. Maybe I'd have gotten away with faking the body and taking a leave as my reward, but Jesus Christ, I wouldn't have minded if they'd invalided me for being insane or executed me for killing a fellow soldier or whatever. I would have been anywhere but here, and if Nadege wasn't waiting for me any more, well, I wouldn't have to face _that_ either, right? And I had to hurry, I couldn't just _wait_ for however long to be sent home, just saying crazy stuff isn't quite enough for that. But nobody cares, of course. Just in case the _universe_ is interested. A man's got to do what a man's got to do, right?

We don't get to answer this one. Rather, he doesn't let us do so. Pedro's been feeling around for his sidearm all this time, while we were too busy listening to his story, and the moment we see his fingers clench around it we withdraw, tightening our grips on our respective rifles. Judging by the look that passes over his eyes, I think he _is_ considering it for a moment or two - though he must know that he can't take both of us down - but then the moment is gone as he turns his face away, throwing one blank glance up at the sky. Then he closes his eyes.

It was nothing personal against you boys. God forgive me, I didn't know. If I'd known that it were you two-

If he'd known, then what - he wouldn't have shot _us?_ Does that imply he'd have shot anybody else and felt nothing?

Put the gun down, then we'll talk it over, Guy says. I don't like the look in his eyes - frightened and _distant_ , like he was remembering something. That story he told me a while ago comes to mind: how the last time someone he knew rampaged with a gun, he had to watch someone else die.   
Then _I_ get scared, too. That's right, I add, as I lower my own rifle a little. Look, we won't even take it away or anything. Please just put it down.

He seems to consider that too, but again, it's a false alarm. His arm raises with the gun pointing towards his own head.

I swear to God it was nothing _personal._

Why the hell won't that bird stop singing?

Guy's actually trembling, but he doesn't give up: Pedro. _Listen to me_.  
Good luck to you out there, boys, he whispers, and extends his other arm to shoo us off. Don't - don't stand behind me, and if you ever meet my girl, not that I think she's alive... you tell her I'm sorry, won't you?  
Wait, don't-!

A lot of good that does Pedro. We just manage to hurl ourselves away from him, shielding our faces, as the gun goes off - a flock of startled sparrows take flight - and gore spatters the sand.

Not ours. His.

I've managed to avoid most of it. Guy hasn't been as lucky; he didn't duck down completely as I did. When I look up he's staring down at himself, red streaking down the armour against his arm, blood splattered along the back of his hand and the side of his face. Oh my God, he mumbles, his eyes wide and almost childlike at first - before his expression suddenly twists in utter disgust and fury. Aw, _Jesus Christ!_ What the _fuck!_ Leave it to us to clean up after him, like _that's_ going to solve anything!

I don't know what to do. I don't know what to even say.  
At least that damn bird's flown off?

My voice is shaking too heavily for my liking, but I can't well stay quiet, either. Guy, I rest my hand on his shoulder, trying my utmost not to feel sick looking at the body. We've... got to report this, if what he said was... I... I know you're probably really mad right now, but-  
 _Mad?_ He cries. Am I _mad?_ If he were still alive I could slit his fucking throat in a church.

But I can tell that he isn't really mad at _Pedro_ , rather just dismayed and disgusted at the circumstances he died under. He's sort of beyond blame now. He sits up, frantically dabbing at the blood on his face; as Pedro's backpack is nearby, he gropes at it and finds the water canteen strapped to the side. It's less than half full, but with some help from me and the spray of water he manages to clean up somewhat. While he's busy with that and examining what was in the pack, I check our co-ordinates and begin to log the events, though I can't say I get very far on my first attempt. My doing so has nothing to do with pragmatism, or not having any emotional response to the death; we're just dumbfounded and need something to _do_ for the time being. I'm not sure who's more lost in the fog, Guy or I. Eventually he pushes Pedro's backpack aside and turns to me.

Thom.  
Yes.  
You know what I was thinking when I was looking at him?   
What, after he...  
Yes, _after_ he blew his brains out, he clarifies, and goes on without waiting for my response. As mad as I was - still _am_ \- at him, that pack... I wasn't searching through that because I wanted to know what weapons he had, or even because I was interested in the motives he might have had for, you know. Trying to murder us. No, I found myself thinking about how we hadn't been able to stock up back at the base... and that if he really was dead, then we... we might as well have his rations, because he wasn't going to miss them. How fucked up is that? There he is, his face caved in, and I - I was thinking of taking his food? And I got - _disappointed_ \- when I didn't find any in there, like, what the fuck is wrong with me-  
... He had _nothing?_  
Guy shakes his head distractedly. No. Nothing. There was the water and I saw some empty wrappers, but nothing else. He knew he was going to die.

I can't even say anything to that. I especially don't know how to react because as much as I think about it, I feel like Guy isn't wrong, and I don't like what that implies about the two of us. All I can do is to stare down at the ground for a moment or two, and return to the logs. What you said about the report, Guy speaks hoarsely behind me. You had your camera on, right?  
Mm.   
Good, because mine wasn't. Who's going to believe _that_ happened on paper?  
... No one, I guess. Hell, we've got the body right in front of us and I still don't quite believe it. But I... Guy, do you think it's wise to-  
Don't even _think_ about it, he cuts me off, his voice unusually sharp. He's already figured out what I was going to say. We're not all out here without purpose, or so we can kill each other, no matter what Pedro said - he was just being a crazy bastard. It's unfortunate, but that's what it was. People got killed before we were even set on this mission, and now _he's_ gone and offed himself - that's just more reasons to finish this mission, or at least hold out until another team does, not _abandon_ it. Nobody else has to die needlessly. I'll hear of nothing else.

I bite my lip.  
Then I look down at Pedro's body. The blood already hardened into the sand.

It's not really for the _army's_ sake that I believe that Pedro was mad, or the soldiers who died, he's saying quietly in the background. It's for _my_ sake. So that _I_ have something to hold onto for now. I know how selfish that sounds and I'm sorry. It's dumb of me to pretend that I have a good conscience _now_ , but believe me, I can't lie to you and never will, even if it makes me the villain. Thomas - please, _please_ , for the love of God. Please don't take this away from me.

...

I won't, I answer, and the words stick in my throat. I won't. For _my_ sake.

He nods, understanding. Then neither of us look at each other for a while.

\-----

Relentless egoism.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a joint update with Part Four, which comes in a couple of hours. The fic is done; I'm just trying to space it out a little. I'm sorry it took so long.
> 
> It was very difficult to write this, and it wasn't because of the death.   
> In the process of developing the soldiers' moral thinking - as terribly flawed as they might be in points - Parabellum became quite something else. I have always considered myself to have a strong sense of right and wrong, which hasn't really worked out for me in recent times, indicating either some seriously skewed priorities on my end or a world that isn't willing to accept such binary terms any more. This part of the fic is about that feeling.
> 
> * The bell training is/was done with firemen in order to better pinpoint sounds in an emergency situation. I felt that soldiers could do with a similar training too.  
> * It's up to you what you think Guy's specific sect of Christianity is. Handel's _Messiah_ is more a Lutheran work than anything else, but I have acute trouble seeing him as Lutheran, personally. Or Anglican/Protestant/etc for that matter. Perhaps he, like many other 'moderate' Christians, believes in a mixture that promotes positive action and acceptance instead of interpreting texts.  
>  * _Alouette_ is one brutal song, indeed!  
>  * _Laïcité_ is basically French secularism. I think - put into practice - it has been very misguided, and its consequences somewhat inhumane. That is all I will say on the matter.  
>  * I talk about mirrors a lot when it comes to the salt flats. I think I am always thinking of some ethereal, near impossible ideal, like the post-rain [Salar de Uyuni](http://planetden.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/salar-de-uyuni-bolivia.jpg) when I think of them.


	4. δικαιοσύνη

**Parabellum (Part Four) - ' _δικαιοσύνη_ '  
**

\----------------------------

Now that this has happened, it's definitely a reason to press on ahead and find the next base as quickly as we can manage. We've given Pedro a quick burial and marked the location with his backpack, as well as finally managing to write up the report. It's not that detailed; not like we can do better than what the camera recorded. When Guy stressed to me that we should never enter a major situation without those on, I don't think _this_ is what he had in mind, but I'll be damned if it wasn't an important wake-up call. Then we have to carry on walking, because, well, what _else_ can we do? We still have places to be in, and just because we've lost a couple of hours to this venture doesn't mean we can pack it in for the day. We have walked largely in silence for about five hours when we finally stop, still some miles behind what we should have covered, but there's no helping that. There's no moon tonight; we _could_ carry on walking through the dark, but best not risk it. We set up camp, speaking up only to confirm something along the lines of getting up early, and taking advantage of the cool dawn.

Is there going to be trouble when we get back? Oh, yes.  
Not sure who's going to raise more hell, us or them. If there were any updates on the manhunt, we ought to have been _told_ \- if the other soldiers don't even have a unified mugshot and description to search by, then -

...

None of us asked for this.

I bury my face in my hands and just stay there for a while, unmoving. I could use a drink or five. I want to sit in a bar and stare at agitated strangers like I used to, anything that would bring me back towards normalcy, but it's no use; what Pedro said carries on haunting me. I would trek this desert, many times over, for the most absurd of reasons, if it comes with productive consequences. What I can't handle is having what remains of our meagre purpose _belittled_ in this manner. If the search is off, then we ought to have been withdrawn; if we're to carry on, we would appreciate some indication that we are justified in doing what we do; if by some miraculous reason they don't actually need us any more, for whatever reason, the least they can do is to set us free properly.

Jesus. I've put in not even a third of the time Guy has done in the army, this is just one major setback of many others that could have occurred, and yet I feel like I'm losing it.  
Is basic decency so much to ask for?

...

You know.

When people say fuck my life, I don't think they really know what they're asking for.

...

The tent's been up for over an hour, but Guy's still not inside - when I peek out, I see that he's staring into the distance, some feet away from where the tent is. I actively have to go outside, walk the few dreary steps over to where he's sitting, and rest my hand upon his shoulder for him to take any notice.

Guy.

He starts, gives me a wild stare that only lasts for a second or two - then opens his mouth as if he wanted to say something, though he closes it without a word and turns his face away. Then he gets up and walks into the tent, me following, and zips it up after I'm inside.

The tent is quiet and big enough for the two of us. Normally we curl up and drift off as soon as we get in because there isn't much else to do in there, and besides, it's too cold to stay up and talk most of the time. But tonight we lie in it only because we want to fool ourselves into being more tired. It'll save us having to think. Once we reach the next base and report in to somebody, word will get out that Guillaume's completely unintentional yet persistent bodycount rose by one again, with his partner as witness; they'll say that nobody handled the situation well, the living or the dead. Guy and Thomas, however, don't care about any of that - they like to sleep and let each other dream. The ideal state to be in.

Guy hasn't said anything since coming into the tent. He's just lying in his space with his arm splayed lightly over his forehead, shadows concealing his eyes, and hasn't responded to me for the last couple of hours. From what I can see out of the corner of my eye, he's only moving inasmuch as he's _breathing_ while asleep. Meanwhile I feel as if this night is never going to end, forcing me to contend with the memory of earlier events and that persistent seed of doubt regarding our mission sprouting in my mind.  
Some kind of evergreen or ivy, if we have to get poetic about the pseudo-botany of my soul.

But nothing lasts forever, not even torment. I eventually give into genuine exhaustion and drift off, albeit for all of two hours before Guy wakes me again in the middle of the night. He doesn't do it intentionally, just sitting up from his position like a marionette and staring intensely into the darkness as his eyes adjust, but the rustling sound is more than enough to startle me back into consciousness. I would be more annoyed, but it's still Guy and he wants something from me and his voice is so quiet and calm as he rests a hand near mine and murmurs: You know what day it is today?  
Glance at my watch. It's just gone past midnight. I've barely slept and already I'm being asked to deal with the new day. But at the same time as I'm having that realization I figure out what _date_ it is, and can't help but smile. Of course I do, Guy. Our anniversary.  
Technically it's more _yours_ , he laughs, nudging my shoulder. He always insists on saying that even though I disagree. In my mind, we have always been by each other's side since I became a soldier. This is clearly an error, but it's proved to be difficult to correct; yes, three years ago today I joined the army, but save for basic training, I've spent all of that time next to Guy. He was better at teaching me the ropes, he is basically every mentor figure and friend I encountered during my time here rolled into one. The fact Guy's the only one who bothered to remind me of it whenever the anniversary's rolled around doesn't help that thought, either. Remember earlier? When you asked me what I'd been preparing?  
Oh, yeah?

Guy leans over and rummages in his backpack, pushing our discarded armour aside. He reaches in fairly deep, seemingly having trouble getting whatever it is that he's trying to find; I help him out by clicking on a small pen torch that I keep in my jacket, and he signals a thanks as he pulls out a mid-size thermos. But when he screws open the lid and pulls out the stopper, what greets me is the sight of a long foil-wrapped tube of sorts peeking out from the inside. He turns the thermos upside down and carefully pulls out the tube, unrolling it to reveal twelve small drop-cookie sized florentines, presenting it to my stunned form with a flourish. They're all intact, beautifully glazed and sweet-scented like home.

Happy anniversary, he laughs, you told me those were your favourites.

...

You all right there, he asks, still laughing, though he looks _extra_ relieved when I finally raise my head to stare at him.

...

How the hell did you you get those? Is all I can muster.  
Made it. Chocolate, ground almonds, flour, honey, heavy cream powder. I think they turned out all right.  
A complete understatement. He could have handed me a plain square of rationed chocolate or something like that, something that isn't _notable,_ and I'd have been surprised that he got me anything at all. This is _more_ than all right. We try to eat well when we're at a base, but even then a lot of the time, elaborate baked goods and meals are out of the question. I reach out, though I stop myself just before I touch them - God, they are so tempting - and can't help but look back at him.

Are they... really...  
He just smirks at me and says, eat your florentine. And I do.

His florentines are crispier than what I'm used to, and not as sticky, but that can only be a good thing. The ones I used to have wouldn't have held up in the desert heat, anyway. Too much chocolate. These ones are largely almond crisp with the chocolate as an afterthought, but they're well-glazed with just the right amount of bite. Not too sweet, either, which I always appreciate. What gets me marvelling (though I don't ask, preferring to puzzle it out for myself) is how he got them to stay unmelted and intact in the heat. Even with the thermos, they couldn't have stayed cool for nearly the entire day. But then again, it would make sense that he waited specifically for night to fall so that these would cool back down.

Good?  
Yeah, amazing. I still can't believe that you _made_ those.  
Hey, I'm not that awful of a cook, he laughs, nudging me on the side, completely aware that that's not what I mean. It was basically luck I could actually make those the way I wanted, and even then I could have done with fresh cream and actual butter. Olive oil just isn't the same. I only hope that I'll be here to eat florentines with you again next year.

This would remain as nothing but the nice, casual sentiment it is, if not for me.  
I have to go and ruin it. I don't know what's wrong with me. My chest suddenly feels unbelievably tight as I think of that image - us sitting around in this tent, eating florentines - and upon closer examination I find it to be full of links, of implications, that a second's hesitation from my trigger finger earlier today would have utterly destroyed. Proper ones, Guy's saying. And something else, but from that point I can't bear to listen.  

I put my half of the florentine down. Guy blinks and looks around at me.

Thomas?  
Yes. I-I'm sorry. I just...  
No, no. It's all right. Did I remind you of something?

It suddenly feels very cold in here. I nod weakly.  
Guy puts his florentine down and turns to me, resting a comforting hand on my shoulder, silent as he waits for me to speak on my own. This is our mutual language of understanding, neither full of words nor physical contact but rather time. He could sit here forever waiting for me to come around, if he needed to. He wants to.

But I don't want him to wait that long for my sake, so over the course of a minute or two I calm myself down, and push that sinking feeling away. I look back at him when I feel like I can smile again, properly I mean, and nod as a sign that he can let go now.

Heh. Thanks.  
No problem. Eat your florentine.  
I finish it off after a quick nod, feeling a mixture of pleasure and a strange wariness. Almost like I'm expecting the worst to pop around the corner at any moment. How long have you been planning this, I change the subject, and Guy thinks about it for a good long minute.  
I didn't have a plan. You said a while ago that you liked florentines, and maybe a month or two ago I thought it'd be nice to make you some. If I had the right ingredients, anyway. I was going to buy you a proper drink somewhere if I couldn't make them in time for today... I just got lucky.  
Damn! I hope you're still going to get me that drink.  
What do you take me for? Of course.

We laugh and the mood lightens. This is good. (And a promise for alcohol, too, can't protest _that._ )  
He doesn't seem to want to talk with his mouth full so I let him be for a second, and-

That's kind of why I was so _angry_ earlier, at Pedro, he's saying quietly as he finishes off his florentine. Because I sure as hell wasn't going to die before I could give those to you-

...

Why did I have to let my guard down? Why in front of him?

Am I losing my goddamn mind?

I shake my head fiercely before covering my face with my hands and Thomas, he's saying, pulling me close by the shoulders. Thomas, come on. Shh. It's all right.  
Put up some token resistance. But I think the battle's been lost already. When I inhale it sounds shaky and I know he heard and I can't do justice to how _foolish_ I feel, but again, Guy understands. I'm sorry, I say again, and (somewhat awkwardly) wrap my arms around him, seeing as it's no use pretending that I don't need comfort. I'm ruining this. Truth is I never expected you to give me _anything_ for today, let alone actually bake me florentines. I haven't even _had_ florentines in a long time. It's the nicest thing anyone's given me as a present.  
You deserve it, Guy answers simply, and I can't find anything else to say to that, when he asserts it like it's the most obvious truth in the world. What's making him think that, beats me - sure I'm not bad, but I'm not exactly good. I thought we established that before. I don't know what you believe about yourself, Thom, and I don't want to just assume. But trust me when I say that you do deserve the good things in life.  
... Mm.  
I don't think I said it earlier - but now that we're talking good things, I wanted to thank you for saving me. I've never been so happy to be around someone who I deemed trigger-happy before. I probably would have died without you.  
It's implied in the way he says it that he's also telling me - _I take back what I said then_ \- but I need to actually _hear_ it. Not because I'm not reassured, mind you; I just need to focus on something else, something that makes me genuinely prideful, not this unholy mix of joy and wretchedness that I'm feeling right now. Then promise me that you won't call me being worried in the future as being trigger-happy, I tell him, struggling to keep my voice steady. You owe me that, I reckon.  
Promise.  
Good. Then we're even.  
I'm so proud of you, he says, and kisses my forehead.

...

I want to tell him to not do that.  
That it's too sad. I asked him to save it for when I was dead for a reason.

...

Look at me, he says. I only do so with much reluctance. He waits until our eyes meet, his own a more resolute blue than ever, before he speaks again.

You deserve to be happy, Thomas.

Something seizes hard in my chest and I can feel my expression crumple. There aren't words for how much that hurts to hear, even though I know that he is wishing nothing but the very best for me. God knows how wounded I must look now to him, though he doesn't seem to care as he grasps my hands and leans in closer.

You do, he insists more softly. You do. Believe me.

I try. I really, really do want to believe, or at least to tell him that I am trying.  
What happens instead is that my voice gives way, all words drowning in that overwhelmed silence, and like a child I bury my face into his chest and allow the floodgates to open.

It's only a brief cry, but he feels it, I'm sure, soaking into the fabric of his shirt. He's graceful about it, too, only holding me in quiet silence until it's all over, patting over my back. The only redeeming thing about me in that moment is that I manage to hold back all sound; I know it's perfectly natural for men to cry and let out their emotions, but it's not about _my_ emotions right now, or Guy's, or even emotions as a whole. It's more about the irrevocable truth that the two of us had to be alone in this world, and that what is holding us together had to be war, regardless of what we feel about that or each other. It's because when we speak of happiness, we don't mean peacetime or the sweet drifting afternoons in Paris that we once knew; we simply can't wish that any more, because what we knew of the past either doesn't exist any more, or it simply can't provide the consolation that we have _here_. It's because Guy and I _know that_ , and yet we can't quit wishing the impossible dream for each other, because we still can't let go of the idea that we deserve better. In a way, I realize that Pedro was right. Our lives _are_ utterly disposable. Not necessarily because we aren't valued, but because nothing will come of one of us being killed; we're so utterly precious to each other, because we've spent more time fighting together than we have with anybody else, but who can feel that _with_ us or in our stead?

We could have died earlier. _Guy_ could have died earlier.  
And I'm crying now because I really _was_ scared. No use hiding that.

...

I don't even know.  
How do we _stop?_

...

Forgive me, Thomas, I hear him saying softly as I hide my face in the comfort of his shoulder.  
It takes me a while, but eventually my voice is steady enough to answer: Nothing to forgive.

He just laughs a little at that. It's a sad laugh, full of irresolution.

Everything, he whispers, leaning his head against mine. Everything to forgive.

I think back to his frenzied speech earlier, the one about how he'll keep believing.  
The connection I made is confirmed when he tightens his hold against the back of my shoulders.

I'm sorry that I've led you into such peril, Thomas.

I have nothing to say to that one. Just a quiet sob and a shake of my head. We lie back down. He opens up his bedroll and lets me in; we've often slept huddled close to each other, bodily heat just about transferring between us to keep us warm, but this is the first time he's actually held me fast against his body. He can't close the bedroll back up with me inside, but he doesn't seem to mind and I don't, either, not when I am so close to warmth. He's stroking over my hair as he murmurs to me, gentle and reassuring: Let's not think of things too far ahead. 'Cause you know, we can't predict what's going to happen to us in the near future, let alone where we'll be in several years. I'll protect you; protect me. One day at a time.  
I nod, but the words - so gentle, so kind, yet devoid of promises that can't be kept - make me want to start crying, all over again. I'm sorry, I whisper. I'm kind of a mess right now.  
_Non, non_. You aren't a mess. In fact, I'm glad you still have those.  
What?  
He touches my face, one thumb stroking gently over the trail that my tears have left, in lieu of a verbal response. I can feel my cheeks burn. There's nothing to be embarrassed about, he says, half to himself, before he pulls me closer and sighs heavily. Not a day goes by where I don't feel their loss.

I've never seen Guy cry. At some point I understood why that was, and almost envied him for it, because he seemed to be in control of his emotions without needing to cry. Catharsis aside, and regardless of occasion, there is something inherently wretched about crying; how the tears burn against your face, how your eyes feel sore and your voice doesn't sound quite right afterwards, how feelings beyond words well up until it relentlessly starts kicking within you like a bastard. I didn't expect him to comment on his loss, though, and while I could say a myriad of things I ultimately do not. He knows what he feels, his countless desires and regrets, and he has the final say on what to do about them.

I can't be that for him.

...

What _can_ I be for him?

Despite being embarrassed, and leaning against him, I've kept the penlight on because (paradoxically) I don't want to hide from him either. Not when it matters. I look up at him and he gazes back at me, his expression entirely open. And by that, I suppose I mean _sad_. It seems like with or without me he's destined to misery; I arrived too late to know about or counter much of that. It strikes me then that I don't actually know when he's being discharged, or if he even wants to be - nine years is a very long time to serve, considering his current age. Over a third of his life spent fighting, making the best out of his situation; I remember what he said, about his having adjusted to a different world and morality, and wonder if he will be able to go back home again.

I can't well ask him direct, not so tactlessly, but... if not-

Guy, when the war is over - or when we leave the army...

I'm supposing a lot here: that the war will end, that we'll ever get to leave together, that Guy will want to come with me, that Guy doesn't have any other obligation to keep in the first place, that Montmartre will still exist as I remember it. It's selfish, but in this moment (and beyond) I just need him _so much_ that I'm willing to try.

... Do you want to come live with me?

He presses his cheek to mine, just briefly, gentle and chaste. His skin is warm and my tears dry effortlessly against them.

Aye, I'd like that, he says, and smiles at me. That finally gives me strength to return it - and turn out the light, content enough in his arms.

\-----

To one more year, then, Guy.  
To one more year, Thom.

\-----

I really shouldn't get attached.  
But it's attachment that keeps us going. By 'us' I mean everybody. Everyone dies alone, but no one _lives_ alone, you get me?

\-----

By and by the sand dunes melt away into flat, gravel-strewn, scrublands, with distant mountains to stall the horizon. Still over forty miles to go until the next base. Soon the sun will be setting, and we're slightly off-track because there's an oasis here that we can rest at. This area is unfamiliar to both of us, and for a while we aren't even sure that we aren't working with outdated maps; there are no bases or anything else of interest in this direction, we've never had cause to know anything about this part of the desert. But when the (thankfully large) oasis comes into view, it quickly becomes apparent to us that that's the very least of our problems.

Looks like we've got company.

My whisper is almost lost in the wind. Almost.

There's a _building_ here.  
Slowly we make our way towards it, feet rustling over fresh growths of galetta, sidestepping fragments of stone and wood and assorted debris. I see an empty bird's nest tucked away at the edge of the water, too. We are quick and silent as we approach the building and look around; it isn't a base, or any other military structure. Merely a cabin of sorts. Large parts of the roof are missing and I don't see the hint of any settlement around here. _Somebody's_ clearly in there, though whatever they might be doing, they're not paying any attention to what's going on outside where we are. There's a faint glow visible through the window, which are without glass; when the breeze rustles past, the threadbare curtain flutters a little to let us confirm that we're not just seeing things.

I'm going in.  
Not without me, he responds without looking back. We unshoulder our rifles just in case. I keep it in a proper grip while Guy goes first and tries out the battered doorknob; it yields easily, and he nudges the door open before standing for a moment in that imperfect darkness, for a moment looking like a confused and weary traveller in search of shelter. There is wooden flooring, but large parts of it have broken off. Beneath that there is just chalky cement and trails of sand. We are looking into a short hallway that leads off right a couple of steps forward, expanding into a wider room, in which someone has lit a bonfire, which is the source of the glow that we saw outside. While Guy adjusts his grip on his rifle I go on ahead, peering around the doorway to see-

A robot. Not just any robot - one of the _originals_. This one's a gold-helmet.  
I hold my breath. Guy tenses next to me. But before either myself or Guy can say anything, they look up from the fire and directly towards us, the glow of the flames flickering softly against that blank unseeing screen.

No one moves for a while.

They're sitting very still as they continue to stare at the two of us. We stare back, guns pointed down, but ready to raise it at any moment. When I glance around I see that the place is largely empty of anything that could be used against us; there's a large sack of sorts in the corner, and some dismantled furniture (probably for the fire), but nothing that they could use as a weapon. It's us who have the advantage here.

 _Ah_ , but the gold robot finally exclaims, without much surprise, before turning back to the fire. _Les soldats._

Just like that the realization clicks in my mind and I freeze there on the spot, all my rational thoughts cut off. It doesn't last for long, but I have spent too long hearing that tongue spoken in no voice but our own; Guy looks just as stunned, though he is faster to recover. _Quoi-_ he begins, and shakes his head in disbelief before demanding more loudly and rapidly: _comment se fait-il que tu parles le français?_  
I was built there, is the simple (English) response, a long time ago. I can't remember when I last met a fellow Parisian.  
Wait, what are you-  
_You're_ from Montparnasse, they gesture towards Guy without looking. Or _Quartier Latin_. I could tell from the moment you spoke. Do you intend to come in, _étrangers_ , or are you content to let all the warm air out?  
Guy bites his lip and doesn't say anything, because they were right. So I take over in his stead: We didn't mean to intrude. We just saw this place and - and wondered what was going on.  
As for _you_ \- Montmartre, I think. _Entrez!_ Don't be shy. Get the door, too, if you please.

We share looks before shouldering our rifles again, and pulling the door shut behind us. Somehow it doesn't feel wrong, doing what they want us to, though I certainly don't know what else to expect and that makes me nervous. I haven't forgotten that old order: if _you encounter one of the originals, bring them back alive._ The lick of the bright orange flame instantly lights up the room and the small hallway between it and the door.

They wave us closer. Feel free. There's plenty of room for you two.

Guy goes first. There's one chair, dusty in patches, poised opposite where the gold robot's sitting; the illusion of company. Some more of the same are stacked up in the corner of the room, though most of them have a back or a leg missing. Guy locates one that's intact and offers me the one that was already there, pulling the new chair to its position nearer to the fire, cautiously blocking me from getting to the robot or vice versa.

I suppose I should identify myself, the robot says as they prod lightly at the fire, and only then do they look up at us proper. Unit GM08. I have no other name. You're not obliged to tell me yours, but I'd appreciate knowing.  
We'll keep to that obligation, if you don't mind, Guy says stiffly.  
Fair enough. What brought you near here in the first place?  
We're tracking someone. A murderer.  
The robot tilts their head questioningly. A murderer?  
Escaped from a base up east about just short of two weeks ago. Killed four soldiers there.  
Were either of you stationed there?  
I shake my head, though Guy gives me a meaningful look and I know not to say any more. The robot quietly lowers their head in thought, but they seem to have accepted that response, and returns to their quiet contemplation by the fire.

It is a long time before anyone speaks up again. This gives me time to observe the robot's appearance. Now that I'm looking more closely, I recognize features that I have never seen in real life. The original robots, before the war, only had two distinct types of helmets: the gold and silver standard. Some of the later robots had different shapes and colours altogether, or had certain modifications to the basic two; there's none of those on this robot, and considering how tarnished their helmet is, they were built _before_ those developments were thought of. Newer robots have a panel just beneath their helmet that houses several ports, but this robot has none. They're slim-bodied, not frail by any means but clearly not built with any combat situation in mind, and even though most of their body is hidden under a dark leather jacket and trousers (the edges are tattered, but otherwise the leather is still in good condition) there is nothing there to indicate the presence of a weapon or any other enhancement. Rather, it's the other way around. At one point they reach out to stoke the fire gently with a long grey branch, and I see that the silicone skin covering their hand has been burnt and twisted. It probably extends up to their arm and more. By all means, they are simply a maimed robot civilian, living alone in the desert for whatever reason.

So tell me, they finally break the silence. Just because _I'm_ interested. What does this murdering son of a bitch look like?

...

Ha. I wish I knew. I wish I could be sure. I think of Pedro underneath the earth.

Brown hair, I finally mutter after a minute or two. (Guy doesn't stop me, either.) Blue eyes. Short back and sides when he first fled, though I imagine it'd be longer by now. Same with facial hair, he didn't have any of that either. Private First Class. Long scar down one of his hands. Or so they say.  
Ha, small world. Or maybe humans are just predictable.  
What do you mean by that, I ask, even though the questioning tone gets lost somewhere along the way.  
As fate would have it, just yesterday someone who looked _exactly_ like what you described sat in front of me.

This was unexpected. I do a double take.

... He did? But what _happened?_  
Guy looks shocked too, but he's considerably more wary. That could be _anybody,_ he warns quietly, resting a cautious hand on my arm. I wouldn't assume just yet that it's the same person. Not unless he said anything about the murders, or whatever.

The robot shakes their head.

 _Non._ I didn't hear anything about him killing anybody, but I'm sure we're talking about the same person.  
_How_ are you sure?  
He said he was being chased by a lot of people. That explains why he was being chased. As you can see, I haven't got much to offer except company, and even then I couldn't offer it for too long to someone who was on the run, could I? We had a conversation, I gave him some food, and I sent him on his way.  
Wait. You gave him food? Why? _How?_  
They seem to have anticipated that. Even as we're asking, they make a broad sweeping gesture towards the sack in the corner. Came across that while I was wandering, you soldiers don't always do a good job of clearing out places. Part of why I settled here was because I didn't want to carry it for too long.  
But that doesn't answer the question. _Why_ did you do it?  
The gold robot shrugs. Well, what _else_ would I do with them? You two are far from the first soldiers I've seen in the past few years. _I_ don't need food, but they make a good bargaining tool. They're the reason I got the others to leave me alone in peace. Besides, they're old. Fairly sure they expire at the end of this year. He seemed desperate, so why not.  
And what stopped him from just murdering you to take them, your story doesn't seem to add up.

They just look back at us impassively. What's stopping _you?_

Pause. What a question that is. We like to think that we're decent people.  
Before either Guy or I can raise an objection, though, the robot carries on. You seem to accept outright that just because he killed some people, he has some inherent bloodlust in him, or that he would always have resorted to violence to get what he wanted. I wouldn't operate on such assumptions. Please don't assume that because I agree with you that he must be the murderer, I also agree that he must have been an intrinsically bad person. Before you came along _I_ certainly had no reason to think him guilty of anything. Moreso because he genuinely didn't harm me.  
But you know _now_ , Guy answers, sounding rather offended. Fine, we can accept that. But don't think that we have any intention of being thieves and murderers, either, if you could.  
Well good, don't be. It's no life.  
_You'd_ know all about life, huh? Guy asks, a cynical smile on his lips, and I give him a look. Isn't like him to be nasty. But from what I can see this robot just doesn't give a damn, and not only that, it's obvious that they've run out of those quite some time ago. The gold robot is silent for a while, staring into Guy's face.

I like you, they finally say out loud, followed by a hollow laugh. I've never heard a robot laugh like that before. You remind me of me when I liked myself. Clearly further gone than _him_ , too, it's practically terminal.

...

Who him; what it?

...

The robot doesn't explain beyond a meaningful nod in our direction. But all colour drains out of Guy's face and he stares blankly at them, looking as if he were hit over the head, before hastily turning his face away. He understood something that I didn't; maybe the robot intended it, maybe Guy's just read too far into that comment, but as I said, I don't enjoy seeing him distressed about anything. What's wrong? I ask him quietly, and get nothing in return, so I turn to them instead. What did you mean by that?  
Are you going to kill me, they ask instead.

And I really do have to think about that.

A glance at Guy yields nothing; he's got his own concerns in mind. (Perhaps it's best to drop it and leave that for him to handle.) _I_ don't want to kill them, personally, but then it's a stretch to say that either me or Guy have often _wanted_ to kill somebody. There were orders, yes, but that was a long time ago, I'm not sure what turning this robot in is going to achieve. I don't think so, I tell them for the time being. We'd have done that already if we were.  
They don't say anything, but they do shift a little in their seat. I fancy that they'd be smiling if they could. But our orders were to track the murderer down, and we have every intention of doing so, I continue. Would you have any idea where our mutual friend's made off to?  
You are _very_ naive if you think you still have those kinds of choices, the robot answers, sounding weary as they rest their head lightly upon their hand for a moment. See, I've hardly done much good in this world myself, but I understand your motives. I know you're out to do what you think is right, whether it be chasing this person down or following orders. But for what? What're you going to do with him once you have him, hand him over? Or are you going to kill him yourself, despite killing being what you chased him down for in the first place? Do you know anything about them besides what you've been told? I'm hardly an authority, I gather that, and I don't know if this gives you satisfaction to hear, but he was clearly terrified out of his mind at least as much as he was tired. Very little ammunition left on his person, nothing but a gun, some food and water - not even his own sanity. Do you think killing or torturing a man who has nothing left in his life makes you even remotely heroic?  
We're going to do our best to turn him in alive, our superiors will deal with him as appropriate. He might have been desperate, we're well aware of that. We've been chasing him for days on end, we had plenty of time to question his motives. But you can't argue that he _doesn't_ deserve punishment for killing four people.  
You're at _war_. War is hard for _everyone,_ not just you. Maybe he wasn't trying to kill anyone first. Maybe he got attacked by them, maybe he was framed. Or maybe he was being tormented by his own fellow soldiers and only acted in retaliation. It's the most primal truth that sometimes the members of the same group will turn on each other, after all. I would know. All robots like me would know, even, it's what started this war. _I'm_ an outcast among robots, too. I killed someone. Someone who was very dear to me.

 _Now what the hell is this?_  
We both think it, but we don't say it aloud. It's not as if the robot would hear us, we're sure. Even without expression their quiet, sad wistfulness comes through.

You think the robots are out for a complete revolution. That they're going to take over humankind as the master race and flourish in their stead. You think we resent you for being in that position, that we hate you, that we see mankind collectively as an enemy to be destroyed. But that's not true in the slightest. We are no more interested in world domination than most of you are. I was created a long time ago, long before there was a war between machines and humans, before robots were even given the same rights as persons. I might be recognizable in appearance, but I'm of a model so old by anyone's terms that there is no upgrading me or doing anything with me besides letting me exist. And I was there when we were granted equal rights, I was there when robots began to take pride in being apart from _and_ better than human beings, I was there to watch the chasms opening up amongst ourselves, over whether to mingle with humans or to carve out our own lands to exist in. Back then I saw all of that and cared very little for any of it, because I had a good friend, one who was a silver-helmet in contrast to my own. They were my entire life; we were created together, I lived by them, and if things had worked out I'd have died by them. We were part of a minor group that idolized humanity, even though we really should have known better. Robots grow, too, they need time to mature, even if we stay in the same chassis all our lives. We weren't given that time before we were expelled for what we believed in. You must be familiar with humans ousting robot populations, yes? Have you thought about robots doing the same to other robots for something as personal as _beliefs?_ We were young. We only felt sorrow and a deep sense of despair, because just as they didn't want to understand us or human beings, we couldn't understand them, either. We thought we were malfunctions. Nothing but an error to be eliminated.

Pause. The gold robot gazes by their feet for a moment.

My friend couldn't take it. They asked me to kill them, because they couldn't do it themselves. They assured me that I wasn't to blame. And I did it, because I liked to think that if there was someone in this whole wide planet that I could understand, it was them; who was I to question whether they were or weren't sad, whether their feelings were valid or not? That's what got us exiled in the first place. I trusted them to be truthful with _me_ even if they could never trust another. But at the same time I felt betrayed that they left me behind, that they walked away from me to die alone, when I could have gone gladly with them to blissful nothingness. Did they think I was _happy_ being alive like this? To this day I don't know that answer, but I can tell you what I felt and still feel: I'm not happy at all. I can be at peace with how unhappy I have been since then, but I can't be happy again. I guess that's what kept me fueled for a long time, almost living out of spite. Ever since then I've been living in the Mojave, sometimes in the settlements around the desert, but mostly wandering. During that time I saw more things my friend never had the chance to: I saw the tensions escalate and the war begin, and I saw how no robot I came across ever seemed to rejoice in a victory. Because we don't think like humans think we do, nor what I thought we thought like for a very long time. It was seeing so many others die that finally got me to realize that my friend and I hadn't been all that different from any other robot, like we had believed. It took me that long to understand my friend.

They lean forwards to look straight into our faces.

We robots aren't that interested in surviving. Not long enough to take over, to purge all humans, whatever. We know the conflict can't last forever - we were certain of it before we even began fighting. We also know that there's no chance in hell that humankind will let us attain true equality. It's a concept humans themselves don't know how to implement properly, and the robots of this age don't want to be around to watch the mess. This is a sickness that will persist until everyone is gone, or until everyone gets their act together. For us the war was an act of enlightenment, not some grand takeover. Better to destroy the means that you desire, and yourself along with it, than watch it slipping out of your grasp forever. You may call it binary thinking, but to us in our position, it makes sense.

Guy is the first to look away. His fingers tighten over his knee slightly.  
I only look away to observe this; my mind is far away, elsewhere, the robot's voice lulling me into a trance.

I'm making no claim that the other robots have the right idea, of course. Any path that inevitably spirals you to a vengeful death is far from the ideal. But as soon as I realized all of that I had nothing left to dislike my friend for any more, either. Long did I love them, long did I hate them; but what use was holding onto that? I wasn't going to accept their worldview, but I had to let all that emotion go, so that I could spend the next few years wondering why all this misfortune had to come about. Not just between the two of us, but _everyone_. And I came to understand that life isn't much more than a shared experience, whoever you might be. So often we regard each other with simple eyes and see ourselves as we are on the surface - flesh and bone, wires and metal, _bodies_ walking the earth. How ironic is it, that which allows us to see is what most perfectly blinds us to that fact? Sure I'm here. You're here, we're part of this shared experience, but that doesn't really explain the individual; we're more than names, faces, eyes and mouths if you have them. _Somebody_ has to look at us, point to us and treat us like the different people that we are. I don't kindly presume to know what either of you believe in, but this life, it feels like it'll be worth more if we look out for _each other_ instead of relying on some grand authority. It's best to do well by others now, instead of waiting for some other life where you can start over. Someone else wronging another doesn't automatically give you rights to turn on them, not without understanding what made them that way. And this is hard. I'm not trying to make this out as the _de facto_ solution to all of life's problems, because it can't be. It's the hardest thing in the world simply to understand other people, and when you wrong a person, I'm willing to bet that most people aren't going to want to realize the impact of what they've done for themselves - and when they do, they'll feel like being vanquished from this earth.

This fire, they gesture to the bonfire with a vague wave of their hands. This fire exists because every day I think of hurling myself upon it. And it keeps going because every day I end up realizing that nothing I can do to myself is worse than what I did to _them_. I promised over their grave that I'd see them soon. Every day I break that promise and make it anew, and if I'm in a particularly hypocritical mood I even pretend that I'm well within the time promised. That we just haven't been apart for that long, that whenever I can make it over to them will be soon enough.  
How long ago was that promise made? Guy asks in a soft voice.  
The robot laughs sadly, and prods the fire once more before putting the stick down.

Thirty years is soon enough in the grand scheme of things.

The embers glitter like dying stars among the ashes, blurred by smoke rippling from them. The burn on the robot's arm reflects the light duller than the rest of the skin surrounding it, and I think I understand that, too.

What I'm saying, comes that gentle-but-steely voice again to shake us out of our reverie, is that everything happens for a reason. People act out tragedies in response to all kinds of things, and other people condemn them for all kinds of things, all reasons and arguments and justifications that the average bystander has no way of figuring out. Same with our mutual friend. I understand that you were sympathetic to his actions before. I understand the need to restore order that initially motivated you on this mission, and I understand that you need to keep going, because disobedience has consequences. What I'm less sure of is _why_ you think you're doing the _genuinely_ right thing, when you know so little about what the truth might be, or when you're not even certain of your superiors' motives.  

The robot folds their arms and stares firmly at Guy and Guy does not avert his gaze.

Justice needs someone to believe in it in order to exist, he replies. Not just to be enforced. Perhaps you're right in that there is nothing inherently just in what we do and what we are. We're soldiers. We kill. We have done so many times before and will carry on doing so as long as we are needed. They might call us heroes and some of us might believe that at face value, but you're right, a world full of so-called-heroes like us digs a lot of graves. But even we need a semblance of order. Even we can wrong each other and be wronged in turn; even we can work together, imagine a world where this killing is not necessary, and strive to realize its potential. You can be sympathetic to someone's plight while also recognizing that no first blood ever needed to be spilt. Too many people have died, whether by his hand or amongst us who are chasing him. He's begun an economy of pain and bloodshed that needs to be eliminated, whatever _his_ reasons were can't validate that now. Of course I don't claim to be right personally when it comes to pursuing him. Here I only speak for myself and not my partner - but if I'm wrong for believing in that cause, then it must be so. I'll worry about what's coming when it gets to me.  
You speak for me, I tell him. Guy nods and squeezes my arm slightly.  
So it goes. For now all we want - all we _need_ \- is our murderer.

The robot looks away. Their fists tighten slightly upon their knees, then relax. Six miles directly north of here, they murmur softly, in a tone that signals no intent of repetition. We lean in and listen. Not very far. Just beneath where the barbed wires lie, there is a solar power station. Abandoned a long time back. All the solar panels were stripped away decades ago, but the facility building still stands. Last I heard, he was going to take refuge there and has no plans to move, because he is tired of running and just wants to be left alone while he dies. But if you seek him out, he'll likely go down fighting, providing that he's been eating those rations and still has ammunition left. I wouldn't know about that. The place might not be on your radar, but keep north. Keep straight. You'll get there.

Guy takes me by the arm and pulls me to my feet.

Off so soon?  
We can only take our time while we've got it, Guy answers curtly, though his tone softens after that. ... Thank you.  
_De rien_. Are you sure you don't want anything else? (The robot gestures towards the corner.)  
Best not to take things, if they're already owned by someone. They'd be more useful to _you_ in the long term anyway.

A shadow seems to pass over the robot's visor, but it's gone before too long. They lower their head and let out a sad laugh.

Ha. Well. You better leave, then, and hurry. I can't guarantee that he wouldn't have changed his mind about staying.  
We're aware. If we're lucky, we might still be able to catch him.  
If you're lucky, you won't ever be able to catch him, alive or not, they respond in a tone no less inscrutable than before. But they don't stop us from leaving, either. Guy gestures me forwards, and I move towards the door; when I turn the knob the dying sunlight bleeds right through, making us wince and shield our eyes, before a warm breeze tickles past our cheeks like the unseen gesture of some polite ghost gone many decades since.

I don't suppose I can ask you a favour before you go.

Guy turns around at the doorway, still shielding his eyes. What kind of favour.

The gold robot nods in my direction, hands still folded immaculately on their lap. Can't rightly say.

I glance over between them and Guy, not quite knowing what's going on; it looks like he doesn't, either, at least not initially, before some kind of shadow flickers over his features. The robot keeps staring resolutely at Guy. In that one instant he seems to understand everything, but before I can question it, he places a hand on my shoulder and murmurs: wait outside, Thomas, and keep watch for me. I'll be a minute or two.

Then he ushers me out of the door and pulls it shut behind him. The lock clangs shut. I stand there, staring down at the door handle, before I turn around and stare into the distance. Not another soul in sight for miles around. Beyond that door I can hear murmurs, though I respect Guy's privacy enough not to pry.

_Take your time while you've got it, comrade._

I think I will.

I walk the few steps towards the oasis and sit down. There are no rapids in the Mojave and the water only flows gently, soft and tranquil, hypnotic ripples swirling. But the water stretches out wide, wider than what I can see beyond; should we return here in a few months, or next year, this spot I am sitting on will be no more. That can only be a good thing. A few reeds, patchy and short, sway in the breeze and I look at them for a long time. They are only frail compared to the rich golden fields I used to wade through when I was little, during more innocent times and in a more distant land, but in time the oasis will widen further and there will be more space for the plants to grow. Palms will spring too, perhaps; at night the wind will sing over those reeds, perhaps; in time this small forsaken patch of land will be desert no more, and leave us less of the Mojave to contend with. Somewhere behind me there is a soft click. With not a small hint of sad whimsy I wonder if a day will come in our lifetimes where not enough of this forsaken land would remain to justify having _any_ soldiers stationed in the Mojave desert at all, and at the same time I think how nice that would be, as I raise my hands to my ears briefly and hold them tightly in place, closing my eyes for good measure; it only lasts for a second, then I lower my arms, and stare up the sky just in time to see a small flock of sparrows fly overhead, and _Maman_ , I whisper out loud, because I miss her. For an instant there, with my world plunged into darkness and deep silence around me, I felt the acute childlike comfort of her arms. Those were the good times.

Yes.

I do mean that. Because I _did_ have some of those with my mother. Unto this life she let me out, holding my hand, whispering _Thomas, my sweet Thomas, I will always be by your side._ By making that promise that she knew she could never keep - by being there one moment and not being there the next, too busy looking at the side for the ghost of my brother, she pushed me towards _some_ kind of everlasting. Acceptance or mutuality, that I don't know.

The sun is below the horizon now. Its light stains the desert floor purple and the sand dapples beneath it like velvet.  
I almost want to reach out to touch it, just to see whether it's anything like the sweeping hem of my mother's dress.

The grains rasp against my palm before slipping through my fingers in a heap, a little heap, one by one into an impossible heap.

I suppose that is what I mean. _Impossibility._ I knew that she would never stay with me, and I knew she would never accept me as a single entity, but that never stopped me trying, either. That is the precise reason why I've carried on searching for others to help define me. Every child is in some way attached to their parents, whether by will or by force. But she broke me free, and she could only do that because I was wholly her child, even she was never wholly my mother.

She made sure no part of me died with her, because despite everything, she really did love me.

...

After a while, longer than I expected, Guy emerges from the door and walks to the edge of the water to stand next to me. His rifle is shouldered as firmly as it was when we first went in, and there's not a spot on him, either. He looks at me, lips pressed tightly together, but his eyes are calm - if a little blank. I gaze back at him in silence, hoping that he understands the look of my understanding. Without a word he turns around eventually and lowers his backpack onto the ground, where it falls over with a softer and heavier thump than before. His rifle is set down next to it. When he straightens his back and gazes listlessly into the distance the sunset throws sharp shadows against his face.

So he is with me in the light and dark.

I walk up to him and touch his arm. He flinches a little, but when he glances up at me I see that he is tired more than he's angry or annoyed. Something flickers in his eyes and I with faint alarm wonder if it is _the moment_ , the one that he's been waiting for the past four years. I don't know what to watch for specifically, having never been there, and so only fear it constantly; he meets my eyes, jaw firmly set and almost daring me to challenge him for what he knows that I know that he did, and that _look_ -

\- no, I take it back. I _have_ seen that look before.  
That time we fought those six robots, only a few days and yet a lifetime ago. He didn't acknowledge my apology then and he won't acknowledge it now, even under a different context; sorry just doesn't cut it, not when his suffering is so obviously personal. It was never enough. It just took me this long to completely accept it.

 _Further gone than him_ , the robot said. Maybe they were right. Maybe Guy can't go home again.

Shift my glance downwards. There it is today, his crucifix.  
Strange. I could swear it wasn't there before. But I think I understand now.

I lift up my hand. Guy tenses as if he expects me to admonish or comfort him; he seems equally apprehensive of both options, so I do neither, instead reaching out to trace the silver chain around his neck down to the gleaming pendant. He must have put it on just before he left the cabin, it's still cool between my fingers, but I stand there gently holding it until I return it to him with my warmth - and an embrace that he reacts to with a barely-audible gasp. Trust me to inflict on him more things that he never asked for.

But he doesn't pull away. And that's when I realize that the events of the past day or two, they don't really matter. Maybe everyone we meet really is chasing the same dream, and occasionally led to believe that innocent people aren't really innocent - well, what of it. The machine war (or the immediate dangers of it) passed away; this shall also. Maybe in darker times I'd have thought one suffering blends into another until they all cease to have any meaning, but really, that's not the case at all. Everyone just _is_ trying. Everyone falls down at some point. Everyone has to sit down and cry their heart out once in a while, and if that worked for them - if they work past it - then that's the natural end of it. Happiness won't be forever, but neither is pain. Neither I nor Guy will keep on hurting any more than Maman did, whether that means that we'll find our refuge in peacetime or in death; we're working on the former, but we must learn to forgive ourselves if and when we fail, instead of holding onto ghosts of the past and the future like she did. But even so, I love her. And I miss her. And I know to leave _that_ behind eventually, as part of my growth. I know that it'll be okay.

I pull back and see the defiance melt away from his face. Now there's just a quietly-stunned expression left, his gaze looking past me resolutely rather than at me; for a second or two I feel like I'm looking at the boy that he used to be, the child that I will never know and will always regret not knowing, gazing out at this world with not a small amount of fear and a great deal of confused idealism. _Guy_ is my double. He is my brother in arms, my partner, my guide - he is the half that I compliment and complete. Just because my twin brother didn't make it doesn't mean that I was never to have a brother in my life, nor did it mean that he would forever remain so inaccessible to me. Eugène is dead and Guy is not.

He is here _now_. One day he might not be. But it wasn't yesterday and it will not be today. Not with me by his side.  
That's it. That's what I can be for him.

Guy bites his lower lip with a slow, agonized grace, but he's no longer walking the knife edge. The moment is gone. He clenches his eyes shut; his hands briefly fly to his face and he lowers his head into his palms, letting out a soft noise like a wounded animal, before he abruptly drops them and turns his face away. But even then I can make out a solitary tear making its way down his cheek, slow and almost serene. In that second all the world's tragedy is written upon his face, the perfect curtain call.

...

But people's lives are not films. What is picturesque has no bearing on real life.

...

I don't want you think that that was all we were, me and Guy.

He doesn't want to be pitied, and neither do I.

...

We're not that kind of people.

...

You have them too, I whisper close to his neck, gently reaching up to touch that single tear. You never lost them, see.

No, he doesn't see. But he doesn't say that. He just leans his head against my shoulder and gazes straight ahead, his vision blurred though resolute. My hand searches for Guy's. Our fingers settle. He reciprocates my squeeze after a second or two.  
The sun kisses the water goodnight. A small blue heron outstretches its neck, shivers to shake the waterdrops off its wings, and wades slowly ahead with two small chicks scurrying by its feet. The slow-spreading circles from their movements carry over to our feet, me and Guy's both, the waters rippling the sand beneath them ever so slightly. The little ones take turns fluttering ahead, tucking themselves under, falling behind, and on and on they play and circle. They're cute, rough-feathered and too long-legged for the shallow water, and for a moment I want to take a photo or just _stop them_ \- stop them defined in their young endearing awkwardness before anything else gets to them - though they float up far, smaller and smaller, into the darkness and once upon a time.

There will always be new things to grow, to create and to lose.  
Never mind. They'll get there. That's how it should be, anyway.

\-----

He doesn't say anything for a very long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ἐλευθερία, ἀληθείᾳ, θρηνῳδία, δικαιοσύνη.  
>  _Eleutheria. Aletheia. Threnoidia. Dikaiosune._ Liberty. Truth. Mourning - and Justice.  
>  How our morals come about in any situation we can dream of.
> 
> When I began _Parabellum_ I did not expect this story to turn out this way; it was originally a three-parter that had a vague ending and a vague story, exactly reflective of the day-in and day-out situation the soldiers were going through. I am not sure what influenced it exactly to blossom into this over the past months of scribbling, save for maybe thinking that issues with my mother were involved, or a particularly harsh stretch of moral philosophy classes. But nothing was intended - it just came out this way. I'm a bit astounded at what it is, and while I remain a little wary as to whether the arguments in it _hold_ (it is fine if they do not; Soldiers!Guy and Thomas are not the pinnacle of morality, though they would like to be, and _I_ would like them to be), I'm quite proud of what it became.
> 
> This is for you, Corpuswalker.  
> Thank you eternally for your support. I hope it was worth it.


End file.
